Worlds Apart
by GoatEatingToilet
Summary: Three men connected by ancient relics. Three men who are not only all from different worlds, different versions of 'Earth', but who are all also worlds apart as far as personalities go. Bound by fate, the trio must learn how to trust and rely on one another as they find themselves continually thrust into new dimensions that are under some sort of threat by the undead.
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

* * *

There was a blazing flash of light that would have temporarily blinded anyone within sight of it and, as it faded, three men stood in a spot where nothing but tumbleweeds and a small dust storm had existed before. They all shifted around and examined their surroundings with a sense of anxiety that accompanied them with every new place they were thrown into.

If someone were to pass by the group, they would likely be thought of as collection of worthless vagabonds. They were all wearing tattered, stained clothing as well as smears of blood and dirt on every piece of exposed skin they had.

"So where the fuck are we this time?" Spider casually asked, providing the trio with his usual post-transition question. Having just recently torn the sleeves off of his newly acquired shirt, he was picking at the ripped material where tendrils of loose threads kept tickling his shoulder like actual spider legs. Neither John Marston nor Herbert West batted an eye at his foul-mouth dialogue, as they had all been stuck together long enough to learn each other's traits and not badger one another about them. Spider didn't receive an answer, not that he really thought he would anyway... but it still would've been nice. Herbert began to clean his glasses, which had gained a fine film of dust on them in mere seconds of their arrival, and John surveyed the land in front of him. Something about it looked awfully familiar... _felt_ awfully familiar.

Along with their ragtag look, each one of them was carrying something very... grisly. West's medical bag looked incredibly dinged up and blood was dripping out from something inside of it, Marston's large hunting knife had seen its fair share of combat, clearly displayed by the dulled edges and broken tip, and Spider's belt holstered a variety of bloodied hammers in it, some of which holding onto the fleshy remnants of whatever poor soul he had last bludgeoned it with.

"Does it really matter, hmm, _Spider_?" Herbert asked, taking an effort to say his companion's name in a way that continued to show his disdain for it. He liked the punk well enough he supposed (if Herbert could indeed 'like' someone at all, that was), but the name 'Spider' was just childish and irksome to him. Regardless, he doubted he would ever learn the young man's real name. "It's never where we are that should worry us, but what to expect: some form of the undead."

"Looks like your kind of shithole, John," Spider lamented, ignoring the doctor's reply and pushing forward with his rebellious attitude of disrespect and defiance. He had equated the area to the gunslinger because all he could see was overgrown weeds, cacti and lots of barren, dry earth all around them... and it reminded him of what the Wild West must have looked like almost as much as Marston himself did.

"It is..." John muttered in return, drinking in the sights as the familiarity gave way to full-on nostalgia. It wasn't easy to tell exactly where you were just by a desert landscape, but John was very acquainted with the rocky formations he had ridden passed time and time again, the nooks and crannies where outlaw gangs once hid and he would be damned if it didn't look like the town of Armadillo was just ahead in the distance. A huge smile spread across his face for the first time in what felt like ages. "Boys..." he said proudly, turning to face his traveling partners, "I do believe I'm home!"

Spider and Herbert looked at each other with equal measures of shock and disbelief. Was it true? Had they really come full-circle and somehow managed to make it back to John's old stomping ground? What would it mean if they had?

As John happily began to walk towards town, a much gloomier duo followed behind him. All three men began to reminisce on just how their stories began and subsequently intertwined, as well as the adventures they had had as a result.


	2. From the old West…

**Chapter 1 – From the old West… (**_**Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare**_**)**

* * *

John watched with sorrowful eyes as his wife, Abigail, and son, Jack, rode off on the horse he had just ushered them onto. He knew this would be the last time he would ever see them, the last time he would be able to tell them he loved them. His days were at an end and he knew it. The foreboding dark clouds that were rolling in were extremely ominous to his current situation.

_Jesus! Where did those come from? And why are they moving so fast?_ he thought, momentarily distracting himself from the misery in front of him and the doom he still had to face. The very least he could hope to do was save his family from a certain deadly fate if he sacrificed himself to the armed forces waiting on the other side of the barn.

He turned around, readying himself to confront whatever may come, and opened one of the double doors just enough to get a peek outside and ascertain the conditions.

It wasn't good.

There was a gang of men (ten of them at the very least) lined up in front of the building, guns aimed and ready to fill him full of holes and lead.

John took a step back and exhaled a deep, resolute breath, as if convincing himself that this was what he had to do. A moment later he pushed the doors open and walked outside to the greeting of hired hands with pointed weapons. Among them was the director of the Bureau of Investigation and the whole reason John found himself in this mess: Edgar Ross.

Even with death imminent, there was nothing more John would like to have done at that very moment than blow the smarmy mustache off that bureaucrat's face... and then put a hole between his eyes for good measure. The breathing pile of human rubbish had promised John he could go back to his normal life, a life with his family, after dealing with the former gang members he rode with once upon a time. But that promise only lasted so long before he brought an army to extinguish the last living memory of that gang: John himself. The American frontier and the old West were coming to an end in 1911 and gunslingers like John were becoming fewer and fewer as their world disappeared around them. It didn't help matters that men like Ross were hell-bent on bringing their extinction to them instead of letting it happen naturally.

_I should have figured that filth would have survived a Goddamn apocalypse where the dead rise from their graves and feast on the living,_ John quickly thought to himself, recalling his feint hope that Ross had been eaten (or worse) a month before when Abraham Reyes, a revolutionary leader of a paramilitary group that had recently seized power in Nuevo Paraíso with John's help, had stolen an ancient mask from a holy Aztec temple. The mask (as John would later find out was called the 'Jade Veil of Blight Resurrection') was created as a cursed object that the Aztecs would present to their enemies under the pretense of it being a gift or sign of surrender. Once taken, all the dead of the land would come back to life and attack the group that held the object until it was returned to its rightful owners. When Abraham disturbed the ancient landmark and took the mask, hordes of the undead rose up and descended upon the populace of Nuevo Paraiso as well as New Austin and West Elizabeth… and maybe even the rest of the US for all John knew. It took him days, but John was eventually able to return the Jade Veil to the place where Reyes originally stole it from, thus ending the supernatural plague that had seized the land.

Bringing himself back to the task at hand, John reached for the butt of his gun, ready to pull a quick draw and take out as many of the men as he could before they put an end to his life. But then something happened... something that took them all by surprise. The black clouds that had formed overhead in the distance were all at once swallowing the sky above them, covering the men in a darkened embrace. A loud crackle of thunder seemed to shake the very ground beneath their feet and a collection of wolf howls could be heard nearby. These signature cries were not normal however, they had a certain demonic vibe to them that John remembered well. Before anyone could make a move one way or another, a pack of four undead animals attacked and began sinking their fangs into the soldiers and their horses. Chaos quickly ensued and John unholstered his Cattleman revolver and rapidly began unloading bullets into the heads of men and beasts alike.

"Goddamnit!" he yelled out angrily, retreating to the safe refuge of his barn as the dead men from the cavalry he had killed earlier began to rise and seek out human flesh as sustenance. The number would be overwhelming considering that the Marston family had shot and killed at least fifty men during the initial raid, and only a handful of those were from headshots.

His chest tightened as he climbed the unsteady rung to the hayloft above, the only sounds he could hear were a few more gunshots and the soul-tearing shrieks of men screaming their last breaths as they were being eaten alive.

The undead, while having a ferocious appetite and a powerful sense of smell that alerted them to a nearby food source, were not exactly as smart as they were when once alive. The befouled corpses knew how to run, how to hit and grab, how to chomp and chew... but they lost some of the more advanced motor skills, like the knowledge of how to climb a ladder or ride a horse.

The clouds hadn't advanced far enough East to completely blot out the sun and it shown its bright light into the upper loft as John swung one of the doors open to examine the state of his surroundings. It would have almost been a tranquil setting if it wasn't for the undead scurrying about beneath him and the dozens of freshly fallen beginning to right themselves and shamble through his property. Suddenly something caught his eye and he was all at once disappointed.

"Son of a bitch..." he cursed under his breath. One of the many walking dead that littered the ground was none other than Edgar Ross. It looked as if someone or something had ripped the man's throat out. John wasn't so much disappointed that Ross was dead as he was that he didn't get to do the deed himself, let alone even see it happen!

A thin smile lined his lips as he steadied the revolver on his forearm, pulled back the hammer spur and trained the front sight right between the eyes of the lumbering bureaucrat. John didn't really need to steady his firearm. Hell, he didn't even need to take such care with the aim, as the man could have easily just performed a quick-draw from his holster and hit a target square on at twice the distance of his current mark. The thing was, John _wanted_ to enjoy this... at least as much as he could, given the brooding circumstances. There was a cracking 'boom' that echoed through the air as the revolver discharged, the sound momentarily competing with the harrowing crash of thunder above, and John watched as Edgar's head whipped back to a degree that surly would have snapped his neck if he weren't already dead. The entry point was a glorious sight to see, but the exit wound was spectacular. John knew there was a fair share of morbidity and possibly even sin involved in the pleasure he derived from what he saw, but watching the back of Ross' scalp flap around like a piece of paper caught in the wind was something he had only been able to dream about before.

The corpse collapsed to the ground and the loud sound brought with it the unwanted attention of the surrounding dead. They began to swarm the barn, releasing moans and screeches along the way as they rose their hands up in a vain attempt to reach live prey. The distraction, as it turned out, was a blessing in disguise, as it cleared the area enough for John to plot an escape by quickly lowering himself to a distance safe enough to drop from and making a mad dash to one of the distraught horses that had been circling around since hysteria first stirred the area. Upon securing a steed, he spurred the animal toward the road, bursting through the line of undead that had begun chasing after him as soon as his feet hit the ground. The horse whinnied in fear as it came in contact with the bodies, but as they flew to the side the stallion kept to the course. John may not have had the slightest clue where his wife and son had ridden off to, but he knew where he could find the mask and the man responsible for once again throwing the land he loved into peril. It was, in a sense, his own fault though, as he was the one who told Seth Briars the whole story of how he had bested an old Aztec curse by putting the dead back to rest and restoring order. The treasure-seeking loon may have been a dirty, grave-robbing prospector, but every man needed a place to rest at night, and that stinky old coot had taken quite a liking to the old Baccus place. That was where Seth would be, that was where the mask would be and that was surely where John _needed_ to be.

* * *

As the small shack that sat on the property came into view, John was reminded of why he thought of the area as 'quaint'. Truth be told, if it wasn't for Jack, he probably wouldn't have even had any idea what that word meant... or that it existed. 'It means something is attractively unusual' Jack had answered when his father asked about the expression.

The words kept repeating in his head as he neared the building. 'Attractively unusual' would definitely be how John would describe the old Baccus place. It was nestled at the bottom of a hill and fairly secluded from the public eye. Back in the day it used to be the hideout for a group of moonshiners (hence the name) but was abandoned when they were caught and hanged for their crimes. Because of its out-of-the-way location, Mintie Cummings and Theodore Eaves, an interracial couple, had taken up residence on the property, thoroughly enjoying the ability to be in one another's company when such a pairing would have sent any community into an uproar and resulted in an unruly lynch mob. Unfortunately, it wasn't a mob that would split the couple up, but the wretched infestation of the undead from a month beforehand. John had saved Mintie when she became trapped in an abandoned house after taking shelter in it for the night and waking up to the place being surrounded by the hungry dead. As he escorted her to a safe town, she recalled of how he was the second man to save her from those 'things'. The first was Theodore, and it cost him his life.

It really came as no surprise to John to find that Seth had made himself at home in the shack during the ensuing chaos. The man was just as much of a charlatan as any snake oil salesman. Once the dust settled the first time around, Seth decided to stay at the abode as no one could contest ownership once Mintie left town. Mr. Briars had been an odd fellow since long before John met him, but even he was taken aback by just how cozy Seth was able to get with the undead. During the first disaster, he had lured a horde of them to his place and treated them far better than any living soul he had come in contact with and they, in turn, did not try to eat his flesh from his bones. They seemed docile, even, as they did not attack John either, despite Seth's attempts to sick a particular one on him.

As suspected, there was another gathering of brainless savages surrounding the crazed prospector and, much like before, Seth was dancing around erratically with one of them, the Jade Veil tied to his face with a length of twine. John was not in the mood for any of Seth's games and he meant to make that point very clear from the get-go. Six shots rang out, echoing across the pristine landscape and six bodies once again returned to their state of peaceful rot and decay.

"Don't even think about it," John commanded, jolting the reloaded gun cylinder back into place with a flick of his wrist.

A cowering, shivering Seth stopped dead in his motion at the warning as he reached for his revolver. Instead, he redirected his shaky hand upwards and slowly removed the mask, so he could see just who had ruined his party.

"Oh, hey- hey there John," Seth said with a slight feeling of relief. "If you fancied talkin' with me alone you coulda just pulled me to the side instead of removing all of my guests here." He looked around at the bodies encircling him, kicking at their feet and arms to see if maybe, just maybe, John had not completely killed all of them.

"Cut the shit, Seth. You know why I'm here, so just hand over the relic and we can call it a day. I'll go fix this whole mess… again."

"Fix this whole mess?" Seth stood up, appearing somewhat defiant to what his friend was suggesting. "Fix this whole mess? Don't you see what's goin' on here, John? It's beautiful! These are my kind of people! They don't judge me like the livin', they don't leave me like the livin'! They don't tell me what to do or care 'bout how bad I smell. I _like_ the world this way, John." He began to cackle a mad laugh that John was all too familiar with.

"I ain't kidding around!" John raised his revolver up again, aiming the barrel of the iron squarely at Seth's forehead. "My family is out there in this mess this time! For chrissakes, I need to put an end to this before it is too late for 'em!"

"Alright, alright!" Seth conceded, digging into his pants pocket. He dug his hand in so forcefully that he nearly lost his trousers around his ankles by pulling the material out from under the rope that tied it to his waist. Luckily for John, that worst case scenario did not pan out.

"Ah," Seth breathed, seeming content in finding whatever he was looking for. "Here you are, John. Do treat it with care, 'tis important to me," he said, holding a glass eye in his outstretched palm.

"What the hell is this?" John questioned, looking at the trinket being offered to him. The eye was a memento of the very last time John had accompanied Seth on one of his 'treasure hunts'. Seth was convinced that this one would be the one, the real deal, a trove of wealth beyond imagination. And, in the end, all it turned out to be was a Goddamn glass eye. During the first uprising of the dead, people had all kinds of theories about why it was happening and who was behind it. One of those theories was that the eye was causing it and Seth was to blame. It his typical foolish fashion, Seth had swallowed the eye without prompt or warning. John knew how he must have got it back… and he didn't want to touch the damn thing after that.

"Not the eye, you crazy bastard! The mask!"

Seth recoiled in fear, clutching both the mask and the eye to his chest in protest. "This here mask is mine, John, mine! It's making the world a better place… for me! Why it's-" Seth suddenly stopped, feeling an awkward sensation in his hands. Suddenly there was a sharp pain and he yelled out in disdain, dropping what he was holding. "Damn thing!"

The mask spilled to the ground and landed with a 'clink' sound as it bounced off a protruding rock. John's eyes widened in dread and he rushed towards the fallen artifact. He picked it up and a felt a quick and sudden sting across one of his fingers.

"Shit!" he grunted and hastily pulled his hand back while keep a firm grip on the mask with the other.

"Did it cut ya? It cut me."

John glanced at his finger and saw that it was indeed bleeding. "How the hell did it cut us?" he asked, his eyes glancing in the direction of the Jade Veil. What he saw almost made him drop the mask in astonishment. Smack dab in the middle of the green forehead was the damn glass eye. It looked as if it had been absorbed into the mask and… the thing was looking around like it was alive! "What'd you do, Seth?!"

"I ain't done nothin'!" Seth defended, making his way towards John and placing his hand on the other side of the mask to turn it his way for a better view. "I ain't done- well, would you lookit that."

Suddenly a white light began to emanate from the altered mask, pulsing from it. The light grew wider with each wave and before they could even begin to react, both John and Seth were enveloped in the glow. They couldn't see anything, they couldn't hear anything and neither of them knew how long it was going to last.

Time was not exactly something they could keep adequate track of in their circumstance, but it certainly didn't feel like long had passed before the waves began to dissipate, and the light with them. When they could see and hear again, the two found themselves in very different surroundings.


	3. …to the new West

**Chapter 2 – …to the new West. (****_Re-Animator_****)**

* * *

Herbert was in quite the predicament. All he ever wanted to do was _defeat_ death; to come up with a way to bring people back to life after all hope in the concept had been lost. But now he was being dragged to an uncertain doom. Not only that, but he was being dragged to his doom by what could only be described as a hulking growth of distended colon that had wrapped itself around his body like an anaconda would with its prey. He had sought only to conquer death, and instead, death would have the last laugh. One last, humiliating laugh.

In a way, he had attained his wish. The reanimation reagent he had spent years developing was finally ready for human testing. There were still some kinks to work out with the mixture overall, but it was ready for testing. Unfortunately, calculating the correct dosage turned out to be somewhat of a problem. The first test subject, a male, resulted in a gruesome display of the human body's adverse reaction to the serum when too large of a dose was administered. Every organ that could explode, exploded. The eyes ruptured in their sockets, the heart grew to a size that burst through the protective casing of the rib cage, and his brain expanded far greater than the confines of his skull allowed, causing the cerebellum to implode. It was a disaster… but Herbert also learned so much from it.

The following trials were an odd mixture of greater success and greater failure. One of the 'kinks' that still needed to be corrected in the serum was that when it brought something back (human or animal) it triggered them into a primal, aggressive state that there was no quick, easy fix for. This seemed to be the case with every single specimen, save for one: Dr. Carl Hill.

Dr. Hill and Herbert had butted heads as soon as the intellectually promising student arrived at Miskatonic University and began remarking how most of Hill's work and 'research' was nothing more than a derivative ripoff of another doctor's work. Herbert even went as far as to make that fact known to Hill's coworkers and the students that he taught. As the reanimation experiments continued and grew out of hand with their uncontrollable results, Dr. Hill put two and two together and figured out that Herbert had somehow achieved an insurmountable feat: the apparent reverse of complete brain death. The good doctor had planned to blackmail his defiant student and take credit for the world changing discovery himself. It may have worked too... if Herbert hadn't killed him and subsequently revived him moments later.

Much to Herbert's surprise, Dr. Hill acted unlike any specimen before him. He wasn't just alive, he was cognizant! Hill recognized his former student, he talked to him even... and then he managed to knock out the younger doctor and steal his notes and remaining reagent serum.

When Herbert was able to track him down to the University morgue, they had one final showdown where he decided that he would try out a theory and dispatch his adversary all in one go. It wasn't as easy as Herbert had thought it would be, because Hill had a little plan of his own in store for the budding student. Utilizing all of his medical knowledge (which included an extensive study of the art of hypnotherapy), the newly-acquired reagent and a laser surgical drill of his own design, Hill was able to alter a reanimated corpse's brain functions and bring them under his complete control. In the time it took for him to be found, the doctor had created an army of ten reanimated monsters to rise and fight for him.

Almost falling victim to becoming nothing more than a drooling servant of Hill himself, Herbert was able to turn the tables when one of the undead broke free from the mind-control it had been under and began causing havoc that even Hill could not subdue. With their master distracted, Herbert slipped from the clutches of the reanimated army and put his plan into action. The idea was to pump so much reagent into Hill's body that it would induce the same adverse reaction he had experienced during his initial human attempt. The overdose worked wonderfully, but perhaps it had worked _too_ wonderfully.

Hill's body began to pulsate and shake as the fluid flowed through his body and Herbert couldn't help but stare at what was taking place. He was simply in awe of what was before him. Not more than a moment later, there was a grotesque outline of something trying to push its way out of the abdominal area, much like the outline a baby's small hand or foot would make as they moved around in their mother's tummy, and suddenly a length of colon shot out and wrapped itself around Herbert's face before he could dash back and out of reach. It pulled him down and lassoed him in a tight grip he had no hope of escaping. As the overly-large intestine began to drag the helpless doctor back to whence it came, Hill's chest violently exploded open, spewing forth the vast majority of his insides and leaving an empty crater behind.

The reanimated that were once under Hill's control began to act of their own, aggressive accord as soon as the doctor's head was crushed by the original rogue reanimated, releasing whatever hold he had on them. They began to wildly attack anything and everything. The equipment in the morgue, cleaning supplies above the sinks, even Daniel Cain and Megan Halsey, two individuals who were unfortunately pulled into the whole chaotic mess thanks to Herbert. One of the stumbling undead managed to knock over several chemical vials, the resulting mixture formed into a white gas that began to expand rapidly and caused a burning sensation in the eyes and lungs of all exposed. Another of Hill's abominations tore at the wires in an electrical box and electrocuted itself, sending wisps of burned flesh and smoke into the toxic gas that was just released while plunging the room into a near-utter darkness. As Dan and Megan attempted to escape, Herbert managed to grab the bag that contained his notes and last few bottles of his reagent. Even if he was going to die, he would not allow his life's work to.

"My notes!" he yelled as he clumsily threw the bag in the couple's direction.

It was at that same moment that a bright light flashed in the room and suddenly there were two newcomers who just appeared out of thin air.

* * *

John and Seth went from a familiar setting to a pure white place of seeming nonexistence to... well, they weren't really sure where they ended up. As their vision returned all they could see was a foggy haze and shadows that danced madly from place to place somewhere in the distance. No sooner than they had arrived, something flew through the air and hit Seth directly in the side of the head. He staggered back, releasing his hold on the mask and raising his right hand to the area that had been hit. John was in a bit of a daze as to what was happening in front of him. His brain was trying to figure out what _had_ happened before it could process what _was_ happening. After seeing his surroundings and Seth being hit with something and moving away from him, his hearing came back... but, oh God, did he wish it hadn't. His ears were greeted with shrill screams that made him wince in pain and unsettling moans of discord. The sounds were only underlined by the distinct smell of burnt flesh and some unknown chemicals that were trickling up his nose and down his throat, stinging him immediately.

"What the hell's goin' on, John? Where- where the hell are we?" Seth yelled, sounding extremely alarmed and waving an open hand back and forth in front of his face in a vain effort to clear the tainted air. If the situation wasn't bad enough on its own, Seth's high-pitched screech would have done plenty well to unsettle John's soul.

The gunfighter began to shake his head, looking down at the Jade Veil mask in his hand. "I don't-" He stopped in mid-sentence when someone or something scurried between them and quickly grabbed the thing that had smashed into Seth's head. Instinctually, John moved his free hand to the handle of his revolver, but whatever it was was gone with the item in tow.

"John! John!" Seth began to shout in a heightened panic.

John's eyes flashed back up to his friend and he was shocked to see him being attacked by two people. One, a rather tall black man with all kinds of tubes and needles attached to him, had his arm wrapped around Seth's neck and was beginning to cut off all oxygen, and the other, a man who looked like over half of his body had been badly burned in a fire, was pulling on the prospector's arm and scratching at it so fiercely that it was drawing blood. John quickly unholstered his gun and tried to take aim, but everything was so foggy and chaotic that he didn't want to chance shooting Seth will all the movement. The smoke was pricking at his eyes as well and he had to focus.

"Partner, help!" Seth screeched again. "Partn-" His words were cut short as the burnt man reached up and latched onto Seth's open mouth with two fingers. He pulled forcefully and with a sickening, wet sound of skin tearing, Seth's cheek had been ripped clean off. The old grave-robber howled out in pain as blood began to flow and John witnessed more of his friend's rotted teeth than he ever would have wanted to see.

The gunslinger faltered for a moment at the horrendous vision in front of him before shaking himself out of the shocked state and aiming his pistol. Less than a moment later he shot at the black man and hit him square in the left temple, leaving the bullet and a fair amount of gray matter to explode out of the right side. The man released one last grunt and fell to the side, pulling Seth along with him. As he fell, Seth's head connected with the pointy edge of a metallic cleaning station, leaving a sizable chunk of flesh and hair on the sharp corner. Both bodies hit the floor with a disturbing sound, one that mimicked mud splattering against a board, one that, much to his disdain, John heard over the deafening noise of the room. The burnt assailant looked at his fallen comrade for a moment before darting his head towards John and appearing as if he was going to advance. Another pull of the gun trigger and a bullet tore into the man's shoulder and he immediately began to scamper away.

Already fully aware of what the outcome would be, John made his way to the downed Seth and knelt before him. His eyes were open, staring blankly up into John's. There wasn't even a reason to check for a pulse.

"I'm sorry, Seth. That was no way to go out for a man like you," he mourned in a soft voice, resting his hand on his friend's face and pulling down slightly to shut his eyelids. "You weren't a great friend, you might have even tried to stab me in the back a time or two you crazy, old fool... but you were a friend, I suppose... and I don't have many of those left these days." He sighed and looked around for a moment. "Especially wherever the hell I am now." He gripped the Jade Veil tightly in his hand momentarily, recalling that even if Seth was gone, it was his own undoing. "You damned crazy, old fool. If only you- why did you have to be so..."

It was of no use to chastise the dead and John shook his head, dismissing his odd mixture of regret and anger at his loss. There would be time to further grieve or curse Seth's name, but now was not the time or place for it.

A muffled sound rose above the rest of the commotion, pulling John's attention to the other end of the room.

"Helff! Helff me! Fumone helff!"

He stood, stashing the mask into one of the over-sized pockets in his duster but keeping his revolver in-hand just in case Mr. Crispy or any of his friends decided to try to rip his cheek off. As he tucked the mask into his pocket, he pulled a handkerchief free from under it and held the cloth to his face, making sure to at least cover his nose and as much of his mouth as he could. It may not have been the best filter in the world, but it was a godsend at the time.

"What- what the hell?" John choked out in surprise upon the sight he was greeted with as he followed the sound of the muffled voice's grunts.

* * *

Herbert was laying on the ground, one hand firmly latched onto the side-rail of an overturned gurney and the other still desperately trying to pry the tail of human intestine from his face. The colon was still attempting to drag him back to Hill's body, but the doctor would be damned if he would go easy. Suddenly the sounds of yelling and a gunshot rang through the already-tumultuous room. It was shortly followed by another gunshot. Herbert's mind began to spin. Had the morgue security guard carried a firearm? Yes, he supposed he did, but where the hell did he even come from? Herbert hadn't seen him when he first arrived, but... well, who else could it be?

"Help!" he tried to yell, but the message came out somewhat mangled through his stifled mouth. He continued to cry out, unabated. "Help me! Someone help!"

He continued grunting and trying to resist the pull of the distended innards and it didn't take more than a minute before the doctor saw the outline of a human body approaching though the smokescreen of chemical fog, but was it help or just another of Hill's abominations? As the figure neared further, he could see that it was someone who he did not recognize at all. It wasn't a reanimate, nor was it Dan, Meg or even the useless security guard. It was someone dressed up as a... cowboy? He was holding a gun that looked like it came right out of some old Wild West movie and the man was decorated in full-on bronco garb. There was the classic high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat atop his head and a long, battered tan coat draping over his body. It wasn't buttoned, and Herbert could see a vest and shirt underneath, as well two belts strapped to his midsection. One was holding up his pants and the other, which sat more loosely than the first, was sporting an empty gun holster and a near-empty collection of cartridge loops right next to it. God, was he hallucinating now? Wouldn't that just top it all off. Regardless of whether it was an illusion or not, Herbert reached up to the man in a vain hope of help.

John didn't respond with the offering of his hand in return immediately, as he was still trying to understand exactly what he was seeing. He observed Herbert laying flat on the ground with... something wrapped around the length of his body. That 'something' just so happened to trace back to a headless body propped up against a wall. John had seen some crazy things in his time, especially after the dead crawled from their graves, but this was the weirdest thing he had ever witnessed... by a long shot.

A covered yell of surprise escaped Herbert as he was yanked forward with renewed vigor by the intestines. With his hand raised, he had no means to resist the tug of the determined organ and it was quickening its pace without opposition.

The sudden burst of movement was enough to jolt John from his trance. He lowered his weapon and took aim at the fleshy tentacle, but then hesitated. Was this really something he should be spending a bullet on? After all, he had no idea where he was or how he could get more ammunition if the need arose. He had four in the cylinder, one left in the front cartridge loops and a full-set of seven in the back loops. Twelve bullets total. Even with well-aimed shots, that was only twelve targets he could reliably take out from a distance. Carrying extra ammo was not something he was concerned with when he set out in search of Seth. He knew there would have been plenty of bullets available from the undead he encountered on his path or the half-eaten bodies of fallen victims of the pandemic. But now? Well shit... he didn't have the faintest idea.

There was another violent yank and Herbert was pulled even closer to Hill's convulsing body. He began to wonder if this stranger was just going to stand there and watch as he was dragged to whatever fate await him inside that open chest cavity. He wanted to yell, he wanted to shout, but all he could do was frantically wave both arms and attempt to make some audible sound from his enveloped mouth.

John breathed out a sigh of frustration and holstered his gun. There was no need to spend a bullet on something he could just as easily do in a more hands-on way. As he made his way to the man, he reached to the other side of his gunbelt and unsheathed a large Bowie knife. He placed a booted-heel on the length of fleshy cord and he could feel it try to squirm away under his weight.

Watching as the cowboy held the blade in his hand and slashed in a downward motion, Herbert felt the grip on his body loosen substantially and he was able to wiggle and flail his way out of the wrapping mere moments later. There was a wet splat sound that kept repeating as the end on intestine still connected to Hill was rapidly tapping against the ground, leaking blood and... colon matter.

"Disgusting," Herbert lamented as he made it to his feet. He kicked at the writhing collection of tissue and immediately cried out and clutched at his side.

"Hey, hey you alright, mister?" John questioned, slowly making his way towards him with a hand cautiously outstretched, the Bowie knife still visible in the other. He was offering his handkerchief.

The doctor sucked in a breath of air that only caused the pain in his side to flare once more. "Oh, Jesus!" he hissed, snatching the cloth far more irritably than he had ever intended to. "No, no, I'm fine... I hope. Just a case of bruised ribs." There was another jolt of agony. "Maybe broken," he grunted out in discomfort, moving the hankie to his mouth. With his free hand, he briefly ran his fingers over his sore side, applying only nominal pressure and wincing at the pain. His first instinct was right, his ribs were merely bruised, maybe fractured, but certainly not broken.

"Gonna be alright?"

There was a slight relief when Herbert watched John slide the huge knife back into its holding spot on his belt. "I'll survive, thank you. You..." He wasn't exactly sure how to finish his sentence. He had never had anyone... "You saved my life."

"I've been known to do that a time or two for folk," the gunslinger modestly admitted, grabbing at a random piece of fabric and once again covering his mouth. "You mind telling me what the hell is going on here? I mean, what the hell was that thing?"

"Um..." Herbert was slightly thrown. He couldn't very well explain the situation and expect the stranger to not think he was crazy. "Perhaps this isn't the best time."

A well-timed low groan from somewhere in the mist only seemed to punctuate his point. Hill's minions were still on the loose and the air was not exactly safe to breath. He had his own questions that he wanted to ask John, but he would have to heed his own words and hold off on them.

"Fine, fine," John murmured while looking toward the room's exit. "What's your name?"

"Herbert. Herbert West. And yours?"

"John Marston. How about you lead the way outta here, Mr. West. I got people I need to find."

The words jarred Herbert's memory, and he realized he too had someone he needed to find. Dan may have made it out alright... then again, he might not have. Just as importantly, he had his notes.


	4. Reunited

**Chapter 3 – Reunited and it feels so... oh, shit.**

* * *

"It's this way." Herbert motioned to the door and immediately seized in pain.

"Maybe I'll lead," John said, placing his hand under the injured man's arm to steady him. "You just tell me where to go."

The two continued along the way, Herbert slowly quickening his pace as the pain became slightly more bearable. After exiting the morgue, they turned to the right and were greeted with the sight of the elevator about twenty-five feet away from them... and two dead bodies in front of it, one of which John recognized as Mr. Crispy.

"Come on," Herbert commanded, taking the lead. "We'll take the elevator. It'll be faster... especially in my condition."

John hesitated for a moment and then reluctantly began to follow. "An elevator, huh? I've heard of 'em, but never ridden in one a 'em," he admitted, somewhat sheepishly.

The doctor stopped in his tracks and looked back at the gunslinger with a display of disbelief written on his face. "You've never been on an elevator?" he finally questioned. "What, were you born in the stone age or something?" Herbert made the statement more out of ridicule than as a joke. He hardly ever joked (as John would soon find out) and when he did, it was disturbingly quirky.

He pressed the call button, not waiting for a reply from John, and he didn't get one anyway.

They waited and waited, but the elevator doors never opened. After a few minutes of nothing, the sound of breaking glass and encroaching moans could be heard coming from the morgue.

"Oh hell... we'll have to take the stairs anyway, it seems." Herbert sighed and then directed his cohort to the stairwell.

They had only made it to the second landing, slowed by Herbert's hobbled pace as the pain in his side flared with renewed vigor with every stair he tackled, when a sound stopped them. With the two directly between the basement and first floor, they heard the loud crash of the basement entrance door slamming into the wall and a horrifying scream accompanying it. Something was following them.

"Quick! We have to hurry!" Herbert yelled in a panic, clutching at his side, but John turned around to face the descending set of stairs and stood his ground.

"What are you-" the doctor began, but his words were cut short by a deafening, echoing 'boom' from John's gun.

He had made a quick-draw just as soon as he caught sight of a blonde-haired woman rushing up the stairs. There was a stream of blood oozing from her mouth, and as soon as John fired a shot into her skull, there was a steady stream of blood flowing from that hole as well. She fell backwards, making a slapping sound as her naked flesh connected with the cold concrete steps. She slid down a few before coming to a complete stop and not getting back up.

"There. No rush now," John calmly commented. "As you were, doctor. As you were."

Herbert couldn't tell if he was trying to make light of their situation or not, but he continued his path upstairs nonetheless. Even though he would never admit it out loud, he found John's unwavering actions quite fearless and interesting. Never before had he met a man who had seemingly been thrown into chaos and greeted it with a stoic face. There was another thing he was trying to pinpoint about John: his voice. It sounded... it sounded gruff and hoarse. Almost as if he had sucked in a grand helping of sand and his voice came out all ragged as a result.

_What would a woman call it?_ he pondered as he ascended each step. _Husky? Yes, they would undoubtedly say he had a husky voice. Women always fall for that kind of thing._

* * *

The duo made it to the top of the stairs and Herbert checked the situation they were about to enter by attempting to slyly peek through the glass pane of the door. The scene on the other side was nothing short of disorderly. People were yelling, some were screaming, and almost everyone in a set of scrubs was running around like chickens with their heads cut off. The fire alarm was blaring and that was one of the only things Herbert was thankful for. It very likely masked the sound of the gunshot that dispatched Hill's monster in the stairwell.

"Just keep calm, act normal and follow me," the doctor requested, turning his head to the side in time to see John nod in understanding. Herbert wondered if it really mattered either way. People would be bound to take notice of John simply because of how he was dressed. It wasn't Halloween, they weren't in a rural area and there were no more real cowboys in the world. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open, exiting into the ER. Their arrival went largely unnoticed, and those who did see them were more interested in making their way to the elevator, where an already swelling group of people had collected.

Herbert's mind instantly went to Dan... and his notes. Had something happened in the elevator? Were Dan and Meg even still alive? Why was everyone just standing there?

Suddenly, a woman who had just approached let out a scream and seemingly fainted on the spot. Herbert ran over to the crowd, completely ignoring his pain. Not out of concern for the woman, but simply because he had to see what had snared everyone's attention. After frantically pushing and squirming his way through the horde, the doctor was greeted with the sight of open elevator doors that showcased a canvas of horror inside. There were long jets of blood splattered on the walls and a bloodied fire ax lay discarded in the corner, but the real gem that caught Herbert's eye was what was in the middle of the elevator floor. A burnt, detached arm lay writhing on the linoleum, its hand still grasping for something that simply wasn't there anymore. Somehow the reagent had sustained life in a single appendage when the rest of the body was sprawled out in the basement... quite dead. Again.

_Parts..._ Herbert thought to himself with a small smile lining his lips. _We are all just a collection of moving parts._

"Jesus Christ! It don't have a body! How's it doin' that?" John hoarsely spat out, startling Herbert out of his daze while also voicing a thought that must have been running through the minds of almost everyone who was witnessing it.

It was then that the two noticed tufts of smoke and chemical fog rising up from the small slit where the elevator door opened. The mess in the basement would be discovered sooner rather than later.

Herbert's ears twitched at the oh-so-familiar sounds of a panicked ER room, a team desperately trying to save a patient, not too far away from them. He silently shook John's shoulder and motioned for him to follow.

As they ventured further down the hall, John observed Herbert snake his head around each doorway to take a peek in every room. "What're you looking for?" he finally questioned out of curiosity.

"Not 'what', but 'who'," Herbert corrected, not even bothering to look back at the gunslinger. "The elevator left a bad feeling in my stomach. If something happened to Dan or Meg, they would surely be in one of these rooms."

John smirked, once again displaying his affable, caustic attitude. "If they smell anything like you right now, we shouldn't have any trouble findin' 'em."

As much as he wanted to, the doctor couldn't ignore that statement quite as much as he could the others. Passersby were giving him disgusted looks and some went as far as to hold their nose in the process as well. Trying as hard as he could to remain looking as sophisticated as possible, Herbert tugged on his coat and sniffed at it. As he had feared, it smelled like fecal matter. It made sense, though, as it had the most contact with Hill's... colon. Well, his pants did as well, but he wouldn't dare disrobe in public. Leisurely, he took his coat off and dropped it into one of the empty chairs that they passed in the hall. No more than a few seconds later, he leaned over and reached for the white lab coat hanging on the back of a chair near the nurses station. The fact that he didn't even break his stride while doing any of this slightly impressed John as he watched it all transpire. The man was on a mission, and he wouldn't even let little side trips truly pull him from his path.

Herbert stopped suddenly as he peered into another room. "Oh no," he whispered and tightly griped the door handle. "Dan!" he yelled as he pulled the door open.

Dan, who was wearing a blood-stained white tank top and dark blue jeans, paid the doctor no mind. He was leaning over a scantily-clad blonde woman on a gurney. Her clothing was blood-stained as well and she did not appear to be breathing. Dan was holding a syringe to the back of her neck, getting ready to inject some sort of bright green, glowing liquid.

"Dan! Stop!" Herbert yelled again, taking a few frantic steps into the room with John right behind him.

The gunslinger was curious as to what was going on, but he knew that silence was sometimes golden in situations such as this.

Once again ignoring what his friend was yelling to him, Dan plunged the needle into the woman's neck and administered the entirety of the needle's contents into her.

John watched as Herbert stomped his way over to Dan, who still had yet to say a word, and took a bottle of the glowing green liquid from him. He stuffed it into some sort of medicine bag and began to berate his 'friend'.

John did his best to focus in on what the two were saying, but they seemed to be speaking in heightened whispers. He also wanted to check on the girl, see if she was alive or not... but he was fairly distracted. His eyes were fluttering around the room at a mile a minute. To him, the place _looked_ like it should be a place of healing, a hospital of sorts... but there were countless things he had never seen before. Wires coming out of metal panels in the walls, boxes that made beeping sounds and had some sort of vivid, perhaps even living, light flashing across it. Even in his uncertain state, John was marveled by what he was witnessing. West Elizabeth this place was certainly not.

It wasn't long after Herbert and Dan began exchanging words, maybe a mere twenty seconds, before a blood-curdling scream escaped the girl and her body started convulsing wildly.

Dan quickly went to be by her side while Herbert calmly began to walk backwards towards the room's exit, his face as stern as ever.

"Meg! Meg you're alive!" Dan began, almost as if he couldn't believe what he had seen happen time and time again had happened for his beloved. "You're-" His words were quickly cut short when a snarling Meg reached up and slashed at his face fiercely with her hand. She had managed to catch his cheek and made a cut that immediately began to bleed.

John drew his revolver, readying himself to dispatch of the crazed woman by knocking her unconscious with the butt of his gun, but a hand grabbed ahold of his forearm and stopped him. It was Herbert.

Medical staff began to flood into the room and once again the doctor beckoned the gunslinger to follow his lead.

"What in the hell is going on?" Marston asked, his hand slightly hovering over the reholstered gun on his hip.

Herbert clutched the medical bag close to his chest while responding, keeping his eyes fixed on the chaos unfolding in front of them. "Come on, we have to go."

"Go? Go where? What about your friends here? Aren't you even worr-"

"We have to go – now!" Herbert insisted through a harsh whisper, finally turning to face his new associate. "I wanted to get my notes, my research, my serum!" He held the bag up and shook it slightly for emphasis. "And Dan, too, but he..." Herbert peered over his shoulder and watched as some of the male staff restrained a maniacally laughing Dan while the other half attended to Meg. Both were acting uncooperative. "He's too far gone right now."

"So help him! He's your friend, right?" John persisted, grabbing Herbert by the upper arm as he tried to leave again. John couldn't imagine abandoning those he cared for in such a situation and the fact that Herbert could was just mind-boggling to him. Mind-boggling and enraging.

"Right now he is nothing but a liability! One we _cannot_ afford! If he was in his right mind then, yes, I would do all I could to help him. Maybe. But now? Now all we can do is hope the whole mess downstairs is blamed on those two." He was almost hissing his words in anger now as his eyes darted back and forth from the chaos at the other end of the room back to John.

John stepped back, somewhat aghast. "What is wrong with you? Don't you have a soul?"

"My brain wins out over my soul, John, and yours should, too. What do you think is going to happen to us, _all_ of us, when they discover the massacre in the basement, hmm? Do you have a plausible, sane explanation for that?"

John opened his mouth to reply, but he had no words to counter the man's question. All at once his mind was consumed with the dead body of his friend. What would happen to Seth? He didn't even give that a second thought at first, the confusion and adrenaline rushing through his veins wouldn't allow it. Things weren't exactly 'calm' at the moment, either, but he had time to breath, to think things through instead of rushing for his life. If there was one thing that clearly stuck out for John, it was that he was far removed from his home, from his family. This land was foreign to him. He had no idea how to traverse it... and because of that, he needed Herbert. As much as he hated to admit any form of dependency save for his family, he needed this stranger.

* * *

_**Author's Note:** I know some Re-Animator fans who are reading this are probably a little confused by how I had Herbert act in regards to his friendship with Dan, but that is truly the way their partnership seemed to me in the first film. Herbert is very manipulative and self-centered. That's just the kind of character he is. Everything he did in the Re-Animator, he did for himself. Dan was nothing more to him than a lab lackey puppet who he could control._


	5. House of cards

**Chapter 4 – House of cards**

* * *

The pale-yellow Hyundai Pony drove down the road at a speed just inching over the posted limit, the two passengers inside looked distressed. Herbert seemed quite paranoid as he drove, continually checking all three mirrors to make sure no one was following them, and John just appeared very uncomfortable to be in such a confined, moving space. No matter how he twisted, the cowboy simply couldn't find a satisfying spot in his seat. This was, undoubtedly, another reason why John would likely never get too used to the idea of automobiles replacing horses as a main mode of transportation. They were just too different for him to adjust to.

John's constant fidgeting was a slight distraction to Herbert, but it only served to irritate him more than anything.

"Would you stop?" he finally demanded.

"Can't help it," John grumbled in his defense. "Feel like this thing's closin' in on me or something."

The three-door hatchback was small, there was no denying that, and John was a big individual... or at least bigger than Herbert, so he could understand the man's concerns to a point.

"Well, it's not, so just... calm down."

"What happened to that girl back there?" John asked suddenly, switching subjects without warning and causing Herbert discomfort with the matter entirely. After a moment of silence, John continued, "I mean, she looked dead, she really did, but then she jumped up, actin' crazier than a rat trapped in a tin shithouse! It was like she was wild or rabid or somethin'."

Herbert began to chuckle, and even as harmless as it was, the action gave John goosebumps for some reason.

"Rabid. That's a good way to describe it, I suppose." He looked over at John, trying to read the man to see if he could indeed handle the truth. He sighed, but there was a quirky smile on his face as he did so. "I guess you've seen the various results already, so telling you the whole story shouldn't come as much more of a shock. Do you remember that green serum Dan shot into Meg's neck before she came back?"

After John silently nodded, Herbert went on to explain the entire story to him in great detail (and great pride when it came to his reagent).

There was an agonizingly long and awkward silence after Herbert had finished his tale. John wasn't exactly sure how to respond. 'Crazy,' was the first word that came to his mind, but he quickly dismissed the thought when he remembered not only what he had witnessed in the morgue, the elevator and the emergency room, but also all of the horrors he had laid eyes on back home. He had seen the human (and animal, for that matter) undead stalk the earth well before he came into contact with the good doctor, and that was only the tip of the iceberg. As crazy as Herbert's tale was, John was sure he could one-up him with his accounts of how hell had seemingly opened up in his part of the world not too long ago. He had come into contact with all four horses of the Apocalypse (though not the horsemen, thankfully), killed a chupacabra and a herd of sasquatch, met an ancient Aztec Goddess... and even tamed and rode a unicorn (but that last one was something he would likely never share with anyone).

Finally, John decided he had to at least say _something_; quick glances in Herbert's direction revealed a look of expectation written all over the man's face. "Well, that's a, uh... that's..." he painfully stumbled until he found something random to grasp onto. "This here's a mighty nice motorcar. Mighty nice. Certainly much nicer than the rickety thing I was in when hunting down Dut-" He stopped himself before he began to spin a long yarn. "Certainly better than the one I was in before...even if it is a little small for my taste. I prefer ridin' a horse anyway, but hey, this is your show."

Herbert stared at the gunslinger awkwardly for a moment before narrowing his sights back onto the road. "A horse wouldn't move nearly as fast as we would need it to. Besides, people haven't used those things for mass transportation for decades, John. I'm sure the police will be at Dan's place in no time, and I want us to be gone well before that happens. I just have to... pick a few things up."

There was another moment of silence before Herbert spoke again. "A _motorcar_?" he mocked. "The last time I heard anyone say that was my Grandmother..."

John didn't respond and, even if he had, Herbert likely wouldn't have heard him anyway. His head began flowing with thoughts and concerns directly after his snide snippet. Concentrating on such a silly thing as driving was an absurd waste of time and he would certainly have had Dan do the task if he were in their company. Alas, he was not, and when Herbert asked John to drive, the gunslinger simply shrugged his shoulders and (unsurprisingly) stated that he had 'no idea how to work that thing'. Left with no choice and little time to argue the matter, the doctor simply released a huff of discontent and got into the driver's seat. Still, he couldn't have John keep distracting him by wiggling around in his seat or bringing up uncomfortable conversation points, so Herbert reached down and clicked on the radio to try to entertain the man. Besides, catching any breaking news concerning the hospital and the incidents that occurred there was something he himself was morbidly interested in. As he feverishly shifted through stations, listening for one that sounded like news, John's face twisted into astonishment. The man simply couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"There's- there's people in there? Talking?"

A groan of dissatisfaction escaped Herbert. "Now I know you must be pulling my leg. I don't get it, though. Why? Why are you continuing to act like this with the predicament we're in? It's time to drop the cowboy stint, John. How did you and... your friend end up in the morgue, anyway?"

John thought for a moment, not exactly sure what the doctor meant or how to answer his latter question.

"What year is it?" he finally probed. A concern that he was not only far removed from home, but possibly somehow in another time entirely had been floating around in the back of his head ever since seeing all of the things he had in the ER room. The car, radio and all of the other new thingamabobs he had observed only furthered his anxiety.

"What?" Herbert was confused by the absurdity of the question. "How does it matter what year it-"

"If it ain't 1911, then I think I'm in some deep shit here."

Herbert stopped the car in the middle of the street, wholly in awe of his passenger. It wasn't a gentle, rolling stop either, but more of a screeching-tires, jolting-you-forward-in-your-seat kind of stop. "You're completely delusional aren't you?" There was a twisted smile on his face as he asked.

Again, John had no idea how to answer. "L-look," he stammered, his eyes shifting all over the place as the very rare feeling of panic began to set in, "all I know is that the undead were unleashed again, I needed to find my family and the only person who could help me put a stop to it was the exact same person who made it start over: Seth. The darn fool somehow put that damn glass eye in the mask and next thing I know we were at your morgue and Seth was getting his face ripped off."

Herbert didn't know where to begin. There was so much of interest in the rambling mess that John had just spilled before him. "Perhaps 'insane' would have been a better word for you," he finally said, appearing fairly leery of his passenger.

"I'm not insane!" John insisted through a raised voice. "Or delusional! Or anything else you might be thinkin'. I just... need to get home." His words trailed off at the end, and the somber tone his voice turned to with them would have pried at anyone's heart. Anyone's, that is, aside from Herbert's.

"Well, home is a long _time_ from now, I'm afraid. It's 1985, John."

A look of shock spread over the gunslinger's face and the only words he could find to accompany it were, "19... 1985?" He felt as if his mind went blank, because those four little numbers not only occupied his mouth, but they were all he could think of. Abigail wouldn't be alive in 1985, Jack wouldn't be alive in 1985, and John was certain that he himself _shouldn't_ have been alive in 1985. He was far away from home in more ways than he knew how to comprehend.

Herbert, still fully in disbelief of his passenger's story, watched as a range of emotions swept across John's face. Even though the man remained as silent as a mouse, Herbert examined John's every move and facial expression with great scrutiny. He was either truly going through some sort of inner turmoil at the news of what year it was or the man was stalling for time, unsure of what to fabricate next. The doctor was certain it was the second option. He was so certain, in fact, that he decided to test just how far he could push the whole subject until the facade came tumbling down like a house of cards. Herbert broke from his intense, stern stare and began to drive down the road again, fairly certain that while the cowboy was quite psychotic, he was harmless for the time being.

Aside from the quite murmurings from the radio (which did not consist of one mention of Miskatonic University hospital, much to Herbert's dismay), the rest of the ride to Dan's home was quite quiet. John was still trying to come to terms with how he was seventy-four years removed from his home, from his family, from his time, and the good doctor was plotting exactly how he could push the gunslinger back into some form of reality. He needed John. He might not later on, but he undoubtedly did right now. With Dan out of the picture and things steadily falling apart before his eyes, Herbert couldn't get everything set and ready for his departure without at least an extra set of hands.

* * *

After making it to the apartment and taking a few ibuprofen to counteract his intermittent rib pain (which had spiked significantly with the sitting and standing motions of the car ride), Herbert frantically rushed from room to room, downstairs to upstairs, gathering everything that he could so that it could all be moved somewhere safe. Figuring out where 'somewhere' was would be a problem he would have to deal with later. He didn't even want to leave as much as a note for the police to discover upon their arrival at the residence. He had paid his monthly rent to Dan in cold, hard cash for a reason – no paper trail, and he certainly wasn't going to absentmindedly leave one after what happened tonight, either.

The plan for John to help him make a quick, clean sweep of the house had all but stalled the moment John took a seat on the couch right after entering the house and never stood up again, despite Herbert's numerous requests for help. John's face had lost all emotion, and he just stared a hole into the floor while remaining silent.

It took almost twenty minutes before the man finally said anything.

"How far away are we from West Elizabeth?" he asked Herbert, spooking the doctor as he quickly walked passed him with an overflowing box of glass beakers and test tubes.

"And so it speaks again," Herbert quipped as he set the box on the floor near the couch. John didn't respond, simply staring at the man while waiting for an answer.

The doctor let out a small laugh, beginning to understand that John was truly a man of few words and rarely repeated himself. "You said West Elizabeth? What state is that in?"

"It isn't in a state- it _is_ a state."

Herbert began a full-on laugh this time around. "There is no West Elizabeth state. There never has been."

"Bullshit," John countered. "It's one of the Western border states, right next to New Austin and just above Nuevo Paraiso, Mexico."

"Well, I'll give you credit for being imaginative enough to come up with some geography to go along with your stories, but we both know that none of those places exist, John, nor have they ever. Even if they did, we'd be pretty far away from any Western border state considering we're in the upper East coast of the U.S."

There was a moment of silence before Herbert continued, clearly reading the confusion on his companion's face. "We're in Arkham, Massachusetts. You did know that, right?"

"No!" John spat out in frustration. "I ain't never heard-uh that place! Goddammit! None of this makes sense!"

And with his sudden outburst, Herbert felt that the house of cards that John had built for himself was indeed beginning to tumble down.

Both men were silent for a long time and simply stared at each other. John finally spoke up, trying to bring up something else entirely.

"You know you- you got a hole in your head, right, doc?"

Herbert's eyes widened slightly. He had completely forgotten that Hill had began to lobotomize him in the morgue when his army of minions had the upper hand. He touched the area and immediately winced in pain. It wasn't bleeding, the laser drill had cauterized the wound as it bore through his flesh, but it still stung like a son of a bitch. He went to find a band-aid to put over the lesion and ended up coming out of the bathroom with the entire box, stuffing them into his medical bag moments later. "Can't be too safe," he mentioned, looking back at John.

Going back to his 'falling house' analogy, Herbert couldn't help but test how fast it could fall with a little more prodding. "Um, John, what did you mean earlier when you said the undead were unleashed again?"

The gunslinger began to explain his story, but only made it a little way in before the doctor interrupted him with his irritating laugh of ridicule. "Seriously, John... if that even is your real name, how long did it take you to come up with this whole absurd world of yours? It's really quite involved."

"Do you really think it's a smart choice to keep rufflin' a man who has a loaded six-shooter, Mr. West? 'Specially when the man in question may be _delusional_," John said the word mockingly, "and have an itchy trigger finger?"

Herbert swallowed quite noticeably and moved awkwardly, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. "What I meant to say was – do you have any proof that anything you've been telling me is true?"

"Well..." John stood up and reached into his pocket, "'side from myself, I do have this." He began to remove his hand from the pouch in the side of his duster and stopped momentarily, doubtful if he should be doing what he was planning on.

"You have what?" Herbert asked, taking note that John was hesitating for some reason.

Releasing a heavy sigh, John pulled the altered Jade Veil free from his pocket and held it out in front of the doctor.

"Oh my, a mask with an eye..." Herbert rolled his eyes and stepped a little closer.

The glass eye suddenly began to move around, as if it was inspecting its surroundings, and then it centered in on the approaching Mr. West.

When he realized what was happening, Herbert stopped dead in his tracks. He moved slightly to the right, the eye followed. He moved slightly to the left, the eye followed. "How are you making it do that?" he inquired, seeing that John could clearly not be manipulating it with his hand from how he was holding it.

"I'm not," John answered honestly. "Damn thing does it on its own!" While he was still with Herbert in the moment, his voice was slightly more distant than it should have been, as he saw something from the inside of the mask that was definitely not normal. It appeared as if some fleshy material was growing around the back of the eye.

Examining something foreign seemed to be a trait that was ingrained in Herbert's blood, as he found himself inexplicably reaching out towards the mask with a single finger, full intending to see if he could actually touch the eye and see it if was real. As the edge of his fingernail neared the ocular organ, he just stopped. He didn't exactly _want_ to, but he was unable to actually finish what he started and touch it. It was as if some unseen force was blocking him. "May I?" he asked, but was already reaching for the mask for an even closer investigation.

"I, uh, wouldn-" John began to protest, still affixed by the oddity he had discovered, but Herbert had easily pulled the artifact from his loose grasp.

"This is fascinating," Herbert murmured, truly captivated by what was presented to him. "Absolutely fascin- OW!" he suddenly yelled as he felt a sharp pain dart across his forefinger.

The shock caused him to drop the object entirely and horrified looks grew on both his and John's faces as they watched the Jade Veil tumble to the floor. Once again, it landed with a 'clink' sound and not much else. No shattering, no cracking, not even a chip randomly flying off from somewhere.

"Oh, shit- oh, shit. Did it cut you?" the gunslinger asked, reaching for the mask.

"Yes. Is it alright? Did it break? Wait, am _I_ going to be alright? Is it coated in something poisonous?"

"It ain't broke, and I don't think it's fulla poison or nothin', but the last time someone was cut by it..."

Herbert grabbed his bag, searching for the 'can't be too safe' box of band-aids he had only mentioned minutes before. "'Last time someone was cut by it' what, John? What happened?"

Almost on cue, the mask began to pulsate with white light, bouncing it out like tremors that would grow with each successive surge.

"This!" John yelled and both men were absorbed into the luminous bubble.

* * *

When the light passed and the two could see and hear again, they found themselves outside. Somewhere outside in the pitch dark of night, with the sky seemingly having had a hole torn into it and torrential-like rain bearing down on them.

Two pairs of feet shuffled around in haphazard circles as both men tried to ascertain their changed situation.

Herbert held his medical bag above his head. It was a weak attempt to combat the downpour, but it at least helped a little. "What happened? Where are we? How come we're not at Dan's anymore?"

"Those are all good questions, Mr. West, and I don't have an answer for a single one-uh 'em," John loudly responded, trying to be heard over the sound of the hard rain. He looked around on the ground around them, seeing if he could find the body of his friend anywhere. "I guess the dead don't travel," he finally sighed.

"What?!" Herbert yelled, truly not understanding what his companion had whispered.

"Never you mind, Mr. West." John began to put the mask back in his pocket when Herbert chastised him.

"Don't put it in there! With all the moving around you do, you'll probably bang it into a wall and break it! If it got us into some mess, we'll need it to get out! Just give it to me and I'll keep it i my bag." He motioned for the relic with an outstretched hand, his medicine bag slumping slightly over his head with only one hand to support it.

John looked at him for a moment and shrugged, handing the object over and watching as his new travel partner hastily stuffed it into his kit. In all honesty, he didn't mind much. The damn thing was heavier than it looked and was pulling his pocket stitching to shit, anyway. Besides, they were in this together now, the gunslinger supposed.

He eyed a rather large building, one that was not too far from them, and began walking towards it. The lights were on, as various windows displayed, so he assumed that meant someone was home. Still, just because someone may be home, they might not be quite welcoming to company, which is exactly why he kept one hand close to his gun as he motioned for Herbert to follow him with his other.

"Where are you going?" the doctor asked, barely audible over the pouring rain.

"That place has lights," John pointed, continuing his stride. "Maybe some kind soul will let us inside for a bit. Might not be a bad idea to have some sort of story to tell 'em, either. I'll leave that to you."

"Oh, thanks," Herbert mumbled under his breath. Thinking up a story on such short notice would mean he would have to improvise and not go overboard with it... which was something he sometimes struggled with. The last time he had to improvise something, he killed Dr. Hill by severing his head with a spade instead of just knocking him out.


	6. It's Partytime!

**Chapter 5 – It's Partytime! (****_The Return of the Living Dead_****)**

* * *

"Close the motha-fuckin' windows, man!" Spider yelled, the sense of anxiety he felt clearly ringing through in his voice.

His friend's reply squelched any hopes that rolling the car windows up would help him escape the stinging rain that had started falling.

"I don't have any windows; I busted 'em!" Suicide answered.

"Fuck!"

The twenty-one-year-old Spider was definitely a stand-out in his group. His Rick James inspired hairstyle was probably what caught most peoples' attention, and it had certainly got him laid more than a few times, but getting laid was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

_What the fuck happened? Things were goin' alright. Shit, we were having _fun_! And then... what the fuck happened? _he thought to himself. First there was the strange-looking smoke coming from the mortuary across from the graveyard, then the rain started. It wasn't any kind of normal rain, though. It fell too hard, too fast. There wasn't even any forewarning of it in the air. The stuff stung, too. It felt like it was burning your skin with each drop that hit you... and a lot were going to hit you with how much was falling. And then, of course, there was the blinding light. It came right after the rain started. Or maybe it came _with_ the rain. Nobody knew, and they were all too panicked to pay attention anyway. Things had went from fine to shit in about five seconds flat.

Their current situation was a breeding ground for agitation, confusion and a little claustrophobia. It wasn't as if Suicide's 1960 Cadillac Convertible was not spacious, because it was... but trying to seat six frenzied people into the automobile when it was in closed-top mode was a bit of a stressor. Everyone was talking at once, and everyone wanted nothing more than to get out of the rain and into someplace dry and safe.

"Hey, my skin burns!" Trash bemoaned, quite pathetically. Of the six occupants, the redhead was the only one who was completely and utterly naked (save for a pair of stockings). Before their party had literally been stormed-out, she had performed a strip-tease atop one of the many sarcophagi that riddled the graveyard they chose to hang out in. She could have redressed in her clothing anytime after, but chose to remain naked for a good twenty minutes after. It was a choice she began to regret.

"It's that rain! It's like acid rain!" Casey added, after Scuz had mentioned that his skin burned as well.

"Fuck the rain! What about that light? And those... those... whatever the fuck they were?!" Chuck yelled in a panic. Of all the people in the car, he would have stuck out as a sore thumb the most. He didn't dress like a delinquent, he didn't have the attitude of a misfit... and he couldn't even list a handful of his friends' favorite deathrock or punk bands. If anything, people would think Chuck was a yuppie at first glance with his fancy suits and styled-hair and by any account they would be right, but there was a rebel hiding under that urban professional image and his friends could sense that about him. It was one of the main reasons not a single one of them kicked his ass up and down the town when he first approached the group.

"That was lightning, jackass!" Suicide yelled, not even bothering to look over. He was a very angry individual, one who felt like the whole world, friends included, simply didn't understand him. He showed his anger in various ways, but the main two were his car and his looks. His car was already in bad shape when he had bought it, but that didn't stop him from breaking out the side windows in drunken fits, spray-painting words and phrases like "DIE,' 'Get away,' 'Why bother?' and 'Who cares?' all over the body and not caring about the vehicle's deteriorating condition. His attire spoke volumes about him as well. Suicide wore lots of leather, adorned with chains and spiked studs almost everywhere. He even wore a spiked collar around his neck. His appearance gave a similar warning of 'stay away- I already don't like you and I'll probably kick your ass'. His hair was shaved short and into a style that would garner a lot of attention, but absolutely no job opportunities, and he had a lip piercing that connected to one of his numerous ear piercings via an actual length of chain.

"That sure as shit _wasn't_ lightning! You ever seen lightning that just explodes like that without sending off any sparks or starting a fire?"

"It probably hit a generator and the rain put out any sparks or fire before we could see 'em."

"It hit a generator and no place lost power?! What about those two things?"

Suicide growled in anger. "It was probably some jerks from the mortuary gettin' ready to kick us out of the cemetery, moron!"

"I don't think so, man. They came just after the rain started and they weren't there before that blinding light. They're aliens or something. Get us the hell out of here!"

"Yeah, come on, start the car!" Spider demanded, cutting-in between the two bickering men. Like the others, he had been blinded by the flash of light that appeared from out of nowhere and he agreed, in part, with both men. It wasn't a strike of lightning. No way in hell it could've been that, but he didn't think it was some weird alien light, either. Spider simply didn't subscribe to that bullshit. No, the men, he reasoned with his other friend, were likely employees of the nearby funeral home and were probably going to try to kick them off the property and threaten to call the cops. Regardless of whatever any of it truly was, Spider only knew that they needed to get the hell out of dodge, and fast!

In lieu of a reply, Suicide began to pour silent profanities out of his mouth, doubtlessly aimed towards his lemon of a vehicle. Suddenly, Trash once again made her voice heard.

"It's all over me. A towel- will someone give me a towel!"

"We ain't got no towel!" Spider yelled angrily, looking back at Trash momentarily. He was growing agitated with the tension and, to some extent, his friends. "Come on, man, start the car!" He had turned his attention back to their would-be driver.

"I'm tryin'!" Suicide protested, bouncing back and forth in his seat as he turned the key and the car's engine merely sputtered.

A small fight broke out in the backseat between Trash and Casey when Trash demanded that the other girl give her a piece of her clothing so she could wipe some of the burning rain off of her skin.

"Come on- START!" Spider yelled, now full of anger instead of anxiety.

"Suicide, get the car goin'" Scuz added after watching Trash successfully pull Casey's purple waist-sash from her and begin to dry herself.

The continuous demands did not help the punk's attitude at all. "I'm fuckin' tryin'!" he yelled, pounding an open fist against the steering wheel.

"Crap," Trash continued to whine, "I wonder what's in that rain."

It wasn't a bad question, and certainly one that warranted answering considering the sensation it left on those it touched, but there wasn't a single occupant of the Cadillac that had an explanation.

After several more failed attempts, which ended with Suicide finally giving up on his car altogether, and the hard-top springing a leak, the gang decided to take shelter where two of their other friends were, Tina and her boyfriend, Freddy. Truth be told, Freddy was the entire reason why they all found themselves where they were. All they wanted to do was party, and Freddy always knew where the good parties were, but he had started a new job and still had two hours left on his shift by the time they arrived at Uneeda Medical Supply. Tina didn't want the group hanging around the building in fear that it may freak out Freddy's boss and get him fired and it was Scuz who suggested that they could all 'fool around' in the cemetery right next to the supply house until their friend's shift ended.

Upon arrive at the warehouse, the collection of punks gazed around awkwardly, trying to determine where their friends were in a seemingly unoccupied building.

"Hey Tina!" Suicide yelled, hoping for some sort of response. He got one, and it was not at all what he was anticipating.

"Yes! Oh God! Help me!"

The reply sounded muffled and somewhat distant, but it was definitely Tina's voice and Suicide had honed in on where it came from within seconds. He rushed towards the back of the building as the others followed. When he made it to the basement, there was a peculiar scene playing out in front of him. A taut chain was wrapped around the handles of a metal cabinet, slowly distorting the doors as it pulled and ripped them from their hinges. The sobs and screams of a terrified Tina could be heard coming from within.

"What the fuck?!" Suicide questioned with true confusion riddling his face.

As the chain finally yanked the doors from their frame and they crashed to the concrete floor, the 6'5" intimidating punker tore at a sheet hanging from the ceiling, revealing the operator of the pulley in the process.

If there was one thing in his life Suicide would have immediately taken back, it would have been that last action... because it truly was his last action.

The figure behind the grimy curtain was not human. It may have been at one point, but couldn't have been anymore. Its flesh appeared slimy, melted and black, literally dripping off of its bones with every movement the creature made. It had no eyelids, but bulging eyeballs that looked completely dead, yet seemingly followed movement very well. The towering abomination didn't have any lips either, just a set of perfect white teeth, and it still somehow managed to spit out the word, 'Brains!' before grabbing ahold of a stunned Suicide and tearing into his skull with its pearly-white chompers.

Everyone heard the disturbing 'crunch' sound of Suicide's skull giving way to the powerful set of teeth that had bore down on it, and it was immediately followed by a harrowing scream of agony from their friend. None of them had ever heard anything like it before, and they would never be able to forget it either. A gush of blood began pouring from the wound as Suicide's dead body fell to the floor, spasming occasionally. No one moved- they couldn't. The mixture of horror and shock had cemented them into their places. As a screaming Tina ran passed the group and up the stairs, it jolted Spider into action. Terrified, he lifted up a half-empty can of paint and threw it at the beast that was chewing on his friend's brains. It hit the thing in the back, bouncing off its exposed length of spine and causing it to keel over to the side from the force of the impact. It quickly stood and looked at the collection of frozen bodies. 'More brains!' it bellowed and that was more than enough to send everyone into a frenzy and have them race up the stairs.

When they reached the landing, they all kept going, knowing full-well that whatever had killed Suicide was following them. It was only Spider who had the alertness to actually slam the basement door shut and lean the full-force of his body against it, hindering anything from easily opening it.

"Where the fuck you goin'?" he yelled back at his scampering friends, adrenaline rushing through his veins. "Help me bar the door! Stupid fuckas!"

* * *

The noise of hammers pounding nails into boards that haphazardly zigzagged across the doorway, barring any usage of it, were nearly enough to drown out the sounds coming from the other side of it. The sounds of heavy, phlegm-filled, incessant breathing, accompanied by the scraping, scratching noise of bare bones attempting to dig into (or through) wood. That thing was on the other side of the door, trying desperately to get through, to get more 'brains', and the six individuals on the opposite end had no intentions of letting that happen... even if some were not exactly in their right mind about it.

"What are we doing? What are we doing?!" Chuck asked for the umpteenth time in the last ten minutes, still helping Spider hammer the last of the nails in. "Suicide's down there!"

"Chuck! He's gone!" Scuz yelled, holding his head as if it were about to pop and pacing back and forth. "That thing ate his head! Jesus!"

Casey suddenly shrieked, her voice audibly cracking, "What was that anyway?"

No one answered. No one knew _how_ to answer.

"I said-"

"Shh!" Spider interrupted, cocking his head and holding his ear close to the door. "I don't hear anything down there anymore. Do you?"

"Oh God! Oh Jesus! What if it's found another way out? What if it's coming after us right now?!"

"What the fuck are we gonna do?!" Spider had asked the question and looked at everyone, hoping for some ideas.

"We gotta call somebody!"

"Who?"

"The cops!" Tina answered immediately, but Scuz protested the idea completely, fearing the authorities would only blame everything on them and kick their asses.

"Just- let's just get out of here, okay?!" Chuck half-asked, half-demanded.

Casey once again pierced everyone's ears with her high-pitched outcry, "No! We gotta call somebody!"

Suddenly, the look on Spider's face changed, as if he had just had some sort of epiphany. "Wait a minute, where's Freddy?"

Holding herself like she had been ever since she made it upstairs again, Tina perked up, "He's gone. He wasn't here when I showed up."

Her words sparked something in Casey and it was her turn to light up. "Oh my god, you guys! Chuck-" She frantically motioned between herself and her friend. "We saw Freddy! We did! He was going into that mortuary by the cemetery!"

"Yeah?" Scuz asked, looking at the misfit of misfits for reassurance.

Chuck began to stammer. "Yeah, well... it kinda looked like Freddy I guess, but... I mean..."

"Fuck it," Spider interrupted. "Let's go to the mortuary. If Freddy's not there, maybe we can at least get some help from those creepy fuckers who were gonna crash our party."

"The alie-" Chuck began, but was quickly cut-off.

"They _weren't_ fuckin' aliens!"

* * *

The six traumatized friends fled on foot in the rain, a shared feeling of ambivalence hung over the group like a cloud. They were relieved to be getting as far away as they could from that thing in the warehouse basement and at the possibility of finding their friend, but they were still beyond scared and depressed with the loss of Suicide.

They decided to take the shortcut to the funeral home through the cemetery, each following the other as if it was already a laid-out plan. The rain hadn't stopped or even slowed slightly in the time they had first escaped it, and the group found themselves splashing and sploshing across the various large puddles that had grown from the collected rainwater. The fact that the falling water had lost its burning property was something that was lost on them, as they had far bigger things to worry about now.

They all stopped at the entrance of a random ossuary, trying to make sure the gang remained intact and allowing themselves a moment to catch their breath after sloppily crossing another large puddle.

Spider looked at yet another body of water in their path, this one bigger than any they had come across previously in their sprint. "Holy shit! We're gonna have to swim to get over there!"

Suddenly, there was a loud, gurgling moan that took everyone by surprise.

"What the fuck was that?!" Spider's eyes rapidly zoomed back and forth across the patch of graveyard in front of them, but he couldn't see anything.

Tina's face contorted into a gruesome twist of horror and she pointed to a random grave with one hand, holding tight onto Spider's shirt with the other. "Look! There!"

The ground under the grave of a one William 'Willy' Putname, who died peacefully in 1971 according to his tombstone, began to rise and shift. It didn't take more than a second for a rotting, gray-fleshed frame to rise from the dirt and open its eyes, looking at the collection of punks the same way the tarman-like creature from the warehouse had.

Upon this sight, everyone scattered in different directions. Less than ten seconds after fleeing, Spider came across Scuz and they both spotted Tina laying flat in a puddle, flailing wildly with fear. They lifted her up with ease and kept running in the direction they hoped the mortuary was located, watching as more dead rose from their graves all around them. They heard a voice behind them, someone saying something like 'Hey, wait guys, wait for me!', but none of them could even force themselves to stop their forward momentum and turn around. It wouldn't have mattered either way, as the words were replaced by screams a moment later and the trio knew they had lost another friend.

* * *

It felt like they were running forever and the only slight bit of relief they got was when the mortuary came into view and the lights were still on. As soon as the three made it to the front of the building, they all began pounding wildly and frantically at the door. They needed someone to answer, and they needed them to do it fast!

"Open the door! Open the door, please!" both Scuz and Spider shouted as Tina merely screamed and limply floundered her palms against the door.

The porch lights suddenly came on, but no one could see who was inside to have flipped the switch.

"Open the door! Hurry up!" Spider yelled, believing that the sense of urgency in his voice would alert whoever was inside of their dire situation.

The door flew open moments later and there were two men pointing guns at them. One wore some sort of cowboy getup and the other, a very scared looking white-haired man, greeted them with a demanding warning, 'Freeze or you're dead!'

* * *

_**Author's Note:** I changed the first reanimated zombie from a pure skeletal one to a fleshy one because I always found the notion of a skeleton (with eyelids, nonetheless) coming back as utterly ridiculous when none of the skeletons in the warehouse were reanimated and Willy likely had no brain matter left in his skull since he passed away almost a century before the events of the film._


	7. Unexpected guests

**Chapter 6 – Unexpected guests**

* * *

John and Herbert followed along the building until they could see shadows shifting on the ground and figures moving in the windows. They heard voices as well, but almost all of what was said was too muffled to be understood. They continued down the side of the structure, unsure of exactly where they were going and Herbert even asking if they should go back and knock on the window where they knew people were. John ignored the question and silently pressed on, eventually rounding a corner that seemed to lead to some sort of entrance.

"There's something wrong here. This rain burns, John," Herbert said, trying to pull his hands into his sleeves while still holding the medicine bag above his head for cover.

"Does sting a little," John responded, finally appearing to pay attention to his partner once again, "but I do think we may have found ourselves a door here."

The two continued along the grass lawn, taking note of the stone path that went from the door to what Herbert described as a 'paved parking lot'. John didn't exactly know what that was, but he didn't rightly care at the moment, either.

Before either man could knock on the door, the egress suddenly burst open and a pale-looking older gentleman ran outside and immediately began to vomit.

"Whoa, whoa. You alright, mister?" John asked as Herbert noticeably jumped back, trying quite avidly to avoid the splosh of puke as it hit the wet ground. John caught the man under his arm as he began to sway and two other men came running outside. There was an awkward moment of nothing as the men all stared at each other before one of them, a white-haired man, finally grabbed the sickly person under his other arm and escorted him inside. Herbert was uncertain and distrusting of the tension that had built up from out of nowhere in the seconds they had all met, but he followed John inside nonetheless.

"I gotta call my wife! I gotta go to the hospital!" the sick man bellowed as he was dragged back inside, his legs giving out like wet noodles. He almost instantly began gagging and retching again as John and the other man led him to a couch nearby. It was then that Herbert noticed a fourth man, much younger than the other three, first leaning into and then sitting down on the couch as well. He was wearing a red and silver blank stadium jacket and he, too, appeared very sweaty, pale and just as sick as the man next to him.

"Now who in the hell are you two and why were you skulking around my mortuary?" the white-haired man asked.

He was a bit older, Herbert guessed, probably somewhere around his mid-forties to early fifties and he worn a matching set of burgundy clothes that almost looked like a pair of pajamas. He was holding a pearl-handled pistol and aiming it towards the doctor and his returning friend.

Noticing he was being drawn upon, John performed a quick-draw of his own and the two were locked into a standoff.

Herbert immediately began to chastise the gunslinger, not even bothering to watch the volume of his tone. "What are you doing? Are you insane?! You don't just pull out a gun when someone asks you who you are! We don't even know _where_ we are!"

"But he-"

"Paramedics. Paramedics!" the sick man yelled out suddenly.

The white-haired man sighed and, with a look of exasperation, began to make his way towards and around John and Herbert, never breaking eye contact or his aim.

"Are these men sick?" Herbert asked. He did not receive an answer. "Look, I'm a doctor." He raised his medical bag up as evidence. "I can help."

Another sigh escaped the man and he motioned with his gun that it was alright for the doctor to proceed. As he watched John holster his weapon, he did the same and went to a desk where a telephone was.

"What seems to be the problem, hmm?" Herbert questioned as he approached the pale men. He didn't truly care what the problem was, he just wanted to create some sort of distraction so John wouldn't start a gunfight.

"They're sick," the third man explained. "They ingested some sorta chemical."

"Chemical? What chemical?" Herbert's interest was suddenly piqued.

"I don't know. Some sorta gas. It got all over them."

"What's your name?"

"Burt."

"Well, Burt, do you know where they ingested this mysterious, gassy chemical?"

"Does it matter?" Burt sounded like he was starting to get agitated with the line of questioning. "Just do your Goddamn doctor thing and help them."

Herbert shook his head and unzipped his bag, immediately rooting around for instruments.

* * *

"Hello, yes, uh, can we get some paramedics over here right away, please? That's the, uh, Resurrection Funeral Home, 21702 East Central. Tell 'em to come around back to the embalming room..." the white-haired man said into the phone.

John watched him as he talked , trying to place where he had seen a gun like his before.

After the man hung-up, he took in a deep breath and looked towards the couch. "Burt, they're on their way. Now..." He shifted his attention to John. "Would you mind telling me who you people are... and where you came from."

Herbert took the lead from the other side of the room, keeping his eyes on his patients and his medical equipment. "The name's Herbert. Herbert West. I'm a doctor and John there is one of my special patients. We were on our way to a new facility when I hit a pothole in the road and lost control of our car, crashing into a light pole. I conked my head pretty hard," he pointed to the band-aid on his forehead, "and the seat-belt gave my ribs a good squeeze, but John seems to be alright. The car is totaled, though. We came here because I need to use a phone and the lights were on. Didn't know we'd be walking into... this."

John was on the verge of protesting when he remembered that it was at _his_ plan for Herbert to come up with a story... and he apparently had.

"Why's he dressed up like that?" Burt asked, sitting in-between the sick men as Herbert examined them.

"It's a long story, but basically he thinks he's a cowboy and this is still the Wild West. We have a more vexing problem than my patient, though." He peered up at Burt solemnly, putting his stethoscope back into his bag before zipping it up. "Can I speak with you and..." He peered over his shoulder at the white-haired man.

"Ernie," the man answered, understanding Herbert was talking about him.

"Can I speak with you two in another room, please?"

* * *

"What's the matter?" Ernie asked as he shut the door to the embalming room. "And it is safe to leave your patient, um... John, in there with them?"

Herbert scrunched up his face in disregard and shook his head, "He's harmless."

"Harmless?" Burt almost sprung forward as he released the question. "I saw a gun on his damn hip! That sure as hell didn't look harmless!"

"Oh, that..." Herbert trailed off and released a nervous laugh. He would be damned if this lying business wasn't a constant struggle. "It's all- it's all part of his therapy," he finally managed to say, running through his brain at a thousand miles a minute to find an adequate excuse to yet another falsehood. "It's an old antique-"

_No, try again,_ he thought, scolding himself for not being more apt at this sort of thing.

"I mean, a prop. I don't even think it has the, uh... stuff that makes it...shoot?"

_Oh god, Herbert... did you just say 'shoot' like it was a question?_

"A firing pin? Bullets? What?" Ernie questioned, a squint of doubt was folding his facial features.

"Yes, those," the doctor nodded before trying to move the conversation forward. "Anyway, it's not concerning. What is concerning, though, are your two friends in there-"

"Frank and Freddy?" Burt asked.

"Yes, the sick ones. Well, it's actually a little worse than that, I'm afraid. They're... well, they're dead."

"They're _what_?!" both Burt and Ernie shouted at the same time. The doctor had put the news out so bluntly that they had no idea how to react.

"Dead. Quite dead, actually," Herbert reassured with an eerie calmness. "They look pale as death because they are. That's pallor mortis setting in, not severe sickness. Algor mortis is setting in as well; their body temperature is almost the same as regular room temperature. I can't imagine it'll be long before rigor mortis sets in and then, finally, vigor mortis will be the end of it. They don't even have a heartbeat, so I'm surprised the brain is still functioning at all."

"You're- You're a crackpot," Ernie insisted after a few moments of shocked silence.

"I assure you I'm not!" Herbert rebutted with a look of hurt astonishment. "If you want to help your friends, you find that chemical," he told Burt. Herbert knew it was far too late for the soon-to-be corpses sitting in the embalming room, but still... just the thought of being able to play around with a substance that could sustain brain function while the rest of the body was dying or dead was enough to almost make him giddy. Perhaps it was the key element he was looking for for his reagent; the one that would restore the reanimated to their normal state of mind post-rebirth. He shot his eyes back to Ernie. "Now do you- ah!" He grabbed at the back of his head in pain, as if something had just burst inside his skull. "Do you-" he tried to continue again but another surge of pain roared through his brain and his head jolted, almost like a small tremor.

"Hey, are you alright?!" Ernie asked, steadying the now-rickety doctor.

"Jesus, Ernie, what's wrong with him?"

"I- just," Herbert tried to communicate, but it felt like everything was crashing around him. "Bathroom. Where's a bathroom?" he was finally able to ask.

The two escorted him to a small restroom and stood outside of the door while he did what he had to to feel better.

Once alone, Herbert propped his medical bag on the sink and pulled out a bottle of glowing green liquid. It wasn't nearly as bright and brilliant as the concoction Dan had injected into Meg. It was far weaker, but Herbert needed it to be to do what he wanted it to. He grabbed an empty needle and a rubber tourniquet and struggled to focus.

* * *

After he was finished, it only took a few seconds for the doctor to feel normal and in control again. He exited the small bathroom to find Burt and Ernie staring at him.

"Everything alright in there? We heard you making some strange sounds."

"Yes," Herbert nodded his head, "Just a little headache from..." Quick thinking time again. "...from dehydration. And the accident. Water stopped it," he smiled, "and the aspirin I took should hold it off."

"Maybe you should be seen by the paramedics, too, when they get here," Ernie suggested.

Herbert merely played the idea off with a lackluster 'Mmm,' before asking, "Do you have a phone I can use? I need to call the facility and explain what happened."

"Oh, yes, this way," Ernie motioned and began to lead the way.

"I'll need John, too. He shouldn't be away from me for too long."

Burt took the cue and went to fetch the 'special patient'.

* * *

"Nice sidearm you've got there," the gunslinger commended from behind Herbert, spooking him slightly. John motioned his eyes to the gun holstered by Ernie's side. "Never seen one like it before. What kind is it?"

"It's a, uh, Walther P38."

"A friend of mine used to have something like that. It was called a Mauser... something or 'nother. I can't rightly recall."

"A Mauser C96, probably," Ernie said with a small smile on his lips, his eyes seemingly locked onto an empty space. "They're an antique now, you know?" He suddenly snapped his focus back onto the newcomers. "But this one is still in production and mine is real... and loaded, so no funny stuff, alright?"

"Oh, mine is re-"

"Thank you. We'll be just a few minutes," Herbert quickly intervened, cutting John off before he could gloat that his gun was real and loaded as well. He pulled him into the office and closed the door.

"So what's the plan Mr. West?"

Herbert winced at the utterance of 'Mr. West' again. "I don't... I don't know exactly. I just need to find out where we are-"

"And _when_ we are, but I-" John interrupted.

"Oh, please," the doctor scoffed, inadvertent playing a 'tit for tat' disruption game with the gunslinger. "Look, I may not know what happened, but I sure as hell know that we didn't time travel or any of that kind of nonsense."

"I didn't think it could happen neither, Mr. West, then I ended up in a morgue, saving your sorry behind and looking at things that were years ahead of the time I came from."

Again Herbert winced. "Can you please call me 'Herbert' instead? You... you saved my life and with what we both witnessed at the University, I believe wasting time in our conversations with civil pleasantries is far passed, John."

John released a small laugh, accompanied by a smile of equal size. "I'd rather not, Mr. West. I'd rather not." He caught Herbert's face twitch in a grimace for a third time and his smile grew. "I knew a Herbert back home. Herbert Moon was the man's name, and he wasn't exactly accepting of others. Be it because of their race, religion or pretty much any other matter that didn't meet his taste, the man was filled with hate. I'm not all that ashamed to say the world became a little better off when he died."

Herbert kept silent and listened to the gunslinger share his tale. It was the first time the man seemed complacent with his tone and vibe, and that suited the good doctor just fine. They already had enough to worry about and try to figure out without absorbing negative emotions from one another.

"So, while I can only hope his personality wasn't related to his forename, you can probably see why I prefer to call you 'Mr. West,' Mr. West."

With a sigh instead of his usual facial expression, Herbert nodded his head once in understanding. "Even though I think it's silly, because we are obviously two different Herberts... at least I would hope-" He paused and shifted his eyes to the side, towards John, looking for reassurance of the fact.

Marston appeased him with a nod of his own.

"I can understand your reasoning," he continued. "Can you at least drop the 'Mr.' and just call me 'West,' though?"

"I'd say that's a far compromise. Ya know, I also knew a Mr. West back home as well. Mr. West Dickens."

Herbert squinted, slightly confused at the name. "His first name was 'West'?"

"No," John laughed and shook his head, "it was Nigel. I just always liked to call him 'Mr. West Dickens'. He was a bit like you- the man liked to make potions and concoctions that were supposed to perform miracles... 'cept he was a snake oil salesman at its finest. Not a damn thing he sold worked the way he promised it would."

Herbert looked at his new companion with a bit of awe. "The more you talk about it, the more I am inclined to actually believe all of the stories you share with me. They are very well crafted, I'll give you that."

The gunslinger simply smiled and shook his head, not wanting to argue with the man about the genuineness of his past.

Herbert began looking around the small office while reaching for the phone. "I need to call the university, find out how bad the fallout was from the incident in the basement. And then..."

"And then?" John prodded after the doctor trailed off.

"I don't know!" Herbert answered loudly, audibly irritated. "I've never been in a situation like this! Stop trying to rush me!"

John simply chuckled and shook his head.

"You're awfully calm for a man who wants to get home to his family."

"Can't get home to 'em right now," John shrugged. "They're likely all dead in 1984 anyhow, so til we find a way to get back to 1911, I best just worry about the here and now."

"_We_?" Herbert questioned with a cynical tone, not even catching what John was sure he would in his statement. "Oh no. As soon as I get this mess figured out, I'm getting as far away from you as possible. That much I know for sure. Time only moves forward, John, not backward."

The last part of his statement almost had John burst out in a fit of laughter considering time had indeed moved backwards for the both of them in this new environment, even if only by a little.

Herbert proceeded to pick up the phone and dial a number. The line stayed silent for a moment and, instead of a ringing sound, his ears were greeted with three beeps of varying pitches. He winced at the piercing sounds as an automated female voice immediately followed. 'We're sorry; your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again, or call your operator to help you.'

He groaned, hung up and tried again. He was met with the same results.

"Something wrong?" the gunslinger asked, taking special note of the doctor's confused face. Herbert waved him off and dialed zero for the operator.

John looked around to room as his companion finally began talking with someone. He spotted a red bag with some metal instruments sticking out of it. He fiddled with them for a moment before raising his gaze and taking note of two Volcanic Pistols encased in a glass-fronted frame and hanging from the wall above. The times might have moved on, but hints of the past were everywhere it seemed. Oddly enough, the sight made him smile and long for home. Herbert's voice pulled him from his moment of reminisce.

"No, _you're_ wrong. There most certainly _is_ a Miskotonic University. Maybe I'm just not remembering the number right. Just..." he sighed and tried to collect himself. "Just connect me to the police department in Arkham." There was a slight pause and he looked frustrated all over again. "Arkham! A-R-K-H-A-M! It's in Massachusetts for crying out loud. How do you even- how do you even keep your job?!" Another pause and more frustration from the doctor. "Doesn't exist?! What are you even talking about?! I moved there! I live there! It certainly does exist! You have to be the dumbest, most inept per- Hello? Hello?"

John watched as Herbert slammed the phone down. "Well, that sounded like it went over well," he joked.

Herbert glared at him angrily and did not say a word for a moment. Eventually, with contempt still written all over his face, he spoke. "She said it doesn't exist. The idiot on the other end of the line said Arkham, Massachusetts doesn't exist! How ridiculous is that!?"

"'Bout as ridiculous as some fancy-pants doctor who was wrapped pretty snug in a colon tellin' me that West Elizabeth doesn't exist, that New Austin doesn't ex-"

"Okay! I get it!" Herbert cut-in. "But you have to remember, you were there with me at Miskotonic University, in Arkham, John. I was never in any of the places you talked about."

"Well, I'm afraid I got another surprise for ya, Doc. It ain't 1985 no more. It's 1984. Fourth of July weekend, I guess. I was tryin' to tell ya that earlier, but you were pretty consecrated on that phone."

Herbert just stared at him, stunned and in disbelief, so much so that he didn't even have the ability to correct John's entire misuse of a word. "And- and h-how do you know that?" he finally stammered out.

"I was talking with those two sick fellas when you went out the room to talk with the other two."

"Well, they're sick, John! They don't know what their talking about. Technically, they're dead, but that's besides the point. I know for a fact that they're wrong, anyway. The Fourth of July was on a Wednesday last year, so I would hardly count..." he trailed off as his eyes drifted around the room, like he was looking for something.

"What do ya mean those two are technically dead?"

"No blood pressure, no pulse, various types of mortis setting in. They're walking, talking corpses. It is actually quite fascinating...and infuriating since I thought I was the first and only one to unlock such a secret."

His mind had calmed slightly with the distraction John had just given him, but when he finally eyed what he was searching for, a small flip calendar on the desk with various notes written next to each date, his mental state spun like a top. The three dates in the middle of the page that had '1984 - July' printed in the top right corner read 'Friday, July 3rd,' 'Saturday, July 4th,' and 'Sunday, July 5th'.

Herbert quietly stared at the printed dates on the calendar while a storm erupted in his mind, one that almost rivaled the actual tempest outside.

"How? How can this be poss- no... no. Something must- something must be wrong here..." he finally managed to deny, breaking off at odd points as if to reassure himself he was correct.

John sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Doc, I don't think you're gettin' what-"

A knock on the other side of the door stopped him before he could finish.

"Are- are you two done in there? The paramedics just arrived and I'd really like them to take a look at you, Doctor West."

It was Ernie and, though his concern was admirable, Herbert couldn't have cared less about being seen. He knew what was wrong and he fixed it... until the next time, at least. "Yes, um, where?" His voice sounded distant, as he was truly struggling to bring himself back from the void the calendar dates had put him in.

"In the embalming room where Freddy and Frank are."

"Alright, we'll be there."

* * *

The paramedics, as it turned out, were perplexed by the current state of the two ailing men they were called to see. Much to the disdain of both Burt and Ernie, they had partially confirmed what Herbert had already said. They had no pulse, their blood pressure was zero over zero, their body temperatures were on par with room temperature, the duo even lacked any reflexes or pupillary responses to any form of stimuli.

"What does that mean? What does any of that mean?" Freddy asked after one of the EMTs explained all of their lacking normal system functions.

"Well, it's a puzzle, because technically you're not alive."

"Ha!" Herbert spat out, garnering the attention of every person in the room. Slightly embarrassed, he covered his mouth with one hand and raised the other awkwardly. "Sorry, it's just... please continue."

"You're also conscious though, so we don't know what it means," the medical technician resumed, giving one last glance at the doctor.

"Are you sayin' we're dead?" Freddy suddenly asked, as if the light bulb had finally clicked on in his head.

"Now don't jump to conclus-" the other paramedic tried to intervene.

"Are you sayin' were dead!?" the sick punk once again questioned, raising his voice to a shout.

The first paramedic raised his hand to an angered Freddy, trying to signal that the whole situation needed to calm down. "Obviously I didn't mean you were really dead."

"Oh, yes you did!" Herbert half-shouted. "Because that's exactly what they are! Dead!" He was not handling the possibility that he had actually time-traveled well at all, and it was clearly showing in his altered demeanor.

Ernie appeared very irritated with the doctor and his words. "What is wrong with you? This is a very serious situation and you're acting like some kind of... child!"

"Dead people don't move around and talk!" the paramedic stated, trying to calm the ill men, but directing the anger of his tone towards Herbert.

"Ohhhh," West laughed manically, "you don't have any idea how wrong you are."

"That's it!" Ernie smashed a balled-fist onto a metal table and furiously stared a hole into the prodding doctor. "Take your patient and get the hell out of my funeral home! I don't care if you drown in the rain out there; just get out!"

"Whoa now, hold on," John finally stepped in, placing a hand on Herbert's chest and waving the other towards Ernie. "Remember now, the ol' doc here hit his head an'-"

A loud collection of knocks and shouts interrupted the gunslinger before he could finish, prompting him to instinctively reach for the butt of his gun.

Herbert's head whipped up, eyes glancing at the direction of the door.

"What the hell's that, Ernie?" Burt asked, watching his friend literally jolt to a standing position.

"Front door."

"Well, what the fuck are they doing?"

"I'll find out."

"Hey, I'll come along, if ya don't mind," John insisted, following directly behind the man who had demanded he leave the building moments ago.

Ernie didn't reply, but instead just increased his pace as the knocks became more rapid and hectic. Both men had already unholstered their weapons.

* * *

_**Author's Note:** I slightly altered the timeline to enhance the different world travel subplot going here._


	8. Damned if you do, damned if you don't

**Chapter 7 – Damned if you do, damned if you don't**

* * *

"Don't shoot, man!" Spider exclaimed, not at all looking forward to being shot in the face after running his ass off to escape a horde of corpses that had just exhumed themselves.

Not even considering lowering his weapon, Ernie questioned, "Are you crazy?! Are you on PCP?!"

"Nobody's on any drugs, man, just let us in!"

The mortician hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. "Alright, come in, come in. No funny moves!"

As the punks entered the building, Ernie began to sidestep them and turn his body in a way that he was always face-to-face with the newcomers. After the entryway light was turned on, John simply stepped back and reholstered his gun, assuming that the kids were no threat, just scared out of their minds about something.

As Scuz and Tina backed up further into the room, Spider quickly shut the door and locked it, releasing a warning to the gun-toting embalmer.

"Man, look, you gotta lock all your doors and your windows and call the cops! They're out there!"

"Who's out there?" Ernie questioned, trying to appear tough and fearsome as he rose to the tips of his toes and met Spider within an inch of his face.

"Don't you hear that?" Tina questioned, still on the verge of a full-on breakdown. The girl did not know how to handle stress well, but hardly anyone would in their current situation.

Already frustrated with how quickly his night had turned to shit, all of his unexpected guests and the fact that he should have been at home well over an hour ago with his feet propped up on his ottoman and a glass of brandy in his hand, Ernie angrily yelled 'What!?' in response to the girl.

"Shut up and listen, man!" Scuz urged, pointing to the door.

The room fell silent, moans and screams could be heard coming from the distance. Somehow, they had pierced the fierce sounds of the storm.

The racket took Ernie by surprise and his facial expression showed it. "What is that?"

"It's dead people screamin'!" Spider shouted, his chest heaving as he began to realize just how out of breath and scared he really was.

"What do you mean 'dead people screm-'"

"Dead people?" John husky voice pitched in, alarming the two youths who did not realize he was behind them. "Like, out of the ground?"

Tina quickly butted-in, realizing her friend's statement would be met with cynicism. "Yes, out of the ground, and they're after us. Our friends took off the other way and they're out there now!"

The gunslinger didn't like the sound of this. It sounded like something he had run into far too much lately and he didn't understand how it could keep happening. Before long, Ernie went to the embalming room to grab Burt for his opinion on the news. Herbert, looking quite reluctant, followed along.

"What do you mean? What kind of problem?" Burt questioned as he walked down the twisting halls of the building.

"Well, take a look at it." Ernie really had no idea how to explain the situation to Burt any better than letting him see it with his own eyes and hear the tale from the suspects themselves.

As they turned the corner, Herbert spotted John leaning against a wall and made a beeline towards the man.

"Alright, what the hell's goin' on out here?" Burt asked, his deep-rooted Oklahoma accent making the words come out with a soft drawl, even in his state of frustration.

"Mister," Spider began in explanation, slightly surprising even himself with the civil pleasantry, "that graveyard out there is full of people comin' outta the ground."

"What do you mean 'out of the ground'?"

Spider was about to reaffirm his words when Tina had beat him to it, nodding frantically as she did so.

"Yes, out of the ground," she repeated for the second time in mere minutes. It was quite clear that something had happened to the girl. Something that had no only caked her clothing in mud, left her eyes puffy with tears and had her checking the door behind her while she spoke, but caused her great anxiety when even attempting to go into detail about the matter. "They're horrible and they scream and you've got to do something!"

"Scream?" Burt cut in as the girl was finishing her sentence, the word triggering an ominous feeling in his gut.

"Yes." Tina once again nodded fervently, her whole body almost shaking with the motion. "Mister, they're out there and there's one of them in that warehouse on the other side of the graveyard."

John took note of Spider peeking behind his shoulder towards the door as well and understood that all of the new arrivals were terrified that their shelter was in danger of being overwhelmed by the 'dead people' who were just on the other side of it. A small part of him, one that he was actively trying to keep buried at the moment, knew that they were probably right, too.

"Which- which warehouse?" Burt interjected again as Tina was still talking. The information sent him into a panic, but he tried to speak calmly as he asked. He knew it was a long shot that it wouldn't be _his_ warehouse she was talking about, as the hydraulic and industrial hose distribution center, House of Hose, had been closed and locked up tighter than a clam with lockjaw and the only other building besides his was just a hollow shell after the inside caught fire a few years back.

"The medical supply house."

Tina had said what he feared she would and Burt burst into a small rage at the confirmation, balling up his hand into a fist and swinging it down as he turned his back to them. "Oh shit! Shit! Goddamn!"

Ernie immediately tried to calm his friend down, but also couldn't help but state the obvious. "Burt, I-I I think... I think things are... gettin' out of hand."

"Mister," Tina spoke up again, almost sounding afraid to after Burt's explosion, "there's a hundred of those things out there."

Shocked, Burt and Ernie turned to face the newcomers. John and Herbert were stunned by the news as well, their faces both knotting into forms of astonishment.

"A hundred?!" all four men asked in an eerie, almost comical, unison.

* * *

It was soon decided that the best plan of action was to get in a car- any damn car -and drive as far away as possible until they could find some real help.

As everyone followed Ernie back to the embalming room so he could grab his keys, relief instantly washed over Tina when she spotted her boyfriend on the couch. She ran to him, immediately covering his face with kisses upon her arrival, but the already-thin smile she was wearing after noticing him quickly dissolved when she got a good look at his pale, sickly face. Spider and Scuz, gathered behind the two, couldn't help but exchange glances of concern as they looked at their off-color comrade.

"Oh my God, Freddy, what did they do to you?" Tina asked, a look of despair already setting her features back. Her words floated over the heads of everyone except her friends, as they all had their own concerns.

"Ernie, where are the paramedics?" Burt raised a good concern, as the two EMTs had left to get stretchers shortly before he left the room at Ernie's urging. They should have been back and loading Frank and Freddy onto them by now.

"I'll go get them. Get my own car started," the mortician replied, and then cursed under his own breath. "Shit, my clutch is shot all to hell."

"We'll use the paramedic ambulance then! Just go!" Burt ushered the man.

As Ernie left, John insisted that he tag along again and the man, far too tired and scatterbrained to care, did not argue with him.

As soon as they stepped outside of the door, John could tell something was wrong. Ernie was fumbling with his keys, trying to find the one to his car, but when he made it to the end of the walkway, he noticed what John already had. The ambulance was still stationed at the end of the parking area, but both the driver's side and rear cabin doors were open with no one in sight. As the men cautiously approached the vehicle, once again both had their weapons drawn, it was a small solace to find that there wasn't anything menacing in the front of the vehicle when they peered in. No blood, no signs of any struggle, just empty seats. Everything looked fine.

That was, at least, until Ernie closed the door and the saw the body of one of the paramedics laying on the grass with someone sitting next to it, burrowing their mouth into the open cavity that used to be the top of his head. The creature wailed at the two men, spilling half-chewed brains from its mouth, and Ernie screamed at it in return, lifting his gun and firing three shots. They all hit, and the thing fell onto its back. It rose a moment later and began to run after the men with great speed, even though it appeared to be missing both of its legs. Ernie turned to run, but John's frame stopped him from proceeding. He had his six-shooter aimed and ready.

"You have to hit 'em in the head, mister," the gunslinger yelled before pulling the trigger and lodging a bullet directly into the brain of the resurrected man. Again, the undead fell. A smirk spread across John's face, but it quickly dropped when the figure sat up again to give chase. Both men fell back into the mortuary as fast as they could, Ernie slamming the metal door shut while leaning his body against it.

"Oh, god, oh, god," the white-haired embalmer kept repeating, first locking the door and then pulling down the steel shutters in the windows of the room.

Herbert's interest was piqued for the first time since the realization of his time travel had begun to set-in. They had all heard the shots, and both men came running in moments later. It was John's look of utter confusion that baffled him the most, though. Something big had to have happened for his companion to be wearing such a gaze.

"What was that shooting, Ernie?" Burt asked, agitation seething from his every word.

'It- it- it-' was all Ernie could manage in response as he continued his frantic movements to secure every entrance into the room from the outside.

"'It'?! What is 'it', Ernie?! What the hell?"

"They're all over the cars," Ernie managed to say, obviously trying to calm himself. "They're- it's horrible! They're out there. The paramedics are dead and we can't take the cars. We're stuck." As he continued to speak in a hurried pace, his anxiety seemed to overtake his every action. His movements became frantic and he began stumbling over his own words. "We- Bu- No, we've- Burt, we've gotta call the police."

As Ernie scurried his way over to the phone, Burt and Scuz gently sat Frank back down on the couch he had practically been confined to since throwing up outside, and Tina and Spider did the same with Freddy.

Herbert, who had not lifted a finger to help with anything since his outbursts, made his way to a silent, stunned-looking John.

"What happened out there, hmm?" he posed, the question coming out a little more excited than he would have liked it to.

John looked at him for a moment, his eyes squinting slightly. "I- I shot it. I shot it in the head, West, and the damned thing still got up. How the hell is that possible?"

"You shot what, John?"

The fact that John had admitted to shooting something in the head and it still getting up should have been alarming enough, but Herbert needed clarification as to what, exactly, had traumatized the two men in their own ways. After all, numerous animals could take a shot to the head and still survive and who knew what roamed in whatever nook of the world they were in.

"An undead. I've shot 'em in the head before and they dropped like a sack of potatoes, most-uh the time their damned heads just pop like dynamite or something. Hell, I shot a couple of 'em in the head at the morgue and they died, but this thing got up. It got up and kept comin' after us."

This was unexpected. Herbert didn't exactly know what to do with this new-found information, but somehow it made him very excited to be in such a miserable situation.

"No, not- not work- not working..." Ernie blathered as he quickly walked passed Herbert, slightly bumping his shoulder. As he exited the room, Burt, Scuz and Spider followed.

Curious, Herbert walked over to the phone and picked it up. The line was quite dead. Whatever was happening, it was spreading far beyond where they were.

Only a few seconds had passed before the sound of glass breaking could be heard, and it sounded like it came from the front of the building. Neither John or Herbert looked to one another, but they both moved toward the sound out of questioning instinct. They entered the hallway in time to see a collection of arms reaching in through the shattered panes of the front door, the screaming demand of 'Brains!' growing louder as the undead saw the living just beyond the barricade. Four shots rang out as Ernie recklessly fired his pistol at the gathering crowd and the bullets seemed to have an adverse affect, as the noise brought even more bodies screaming for brains. He quickly changed his plan and began to move the giant cabinet that sat next to the door. As he struggled, he looked at the five other men in the area and yelled at them.

"Help me!"

As if breaking from a daze, they all moved in to assist in relocating the piece of furniture to further block the front door.

"You got some hammer and nails?" Spider yelled, reaching over to Ernie to get his attention.

The man quickly nodded and ran off. The others followed, once again leaving Herbert and John by themselves.

"Are those-" Herbert tried to speak, exasperated beyond belief at the simple action of moving a large hunk of wooden furnishing. "Are those the undead you were talking about?!"

"Yeah-huh," John nodded, giving the entryway an odd look as he watched more of the undead move to the side windows and ram their palms onto the glass.

"Those are _not_ like my reanimates!"

"They're not like anything I've seen!"

Suddenly, the cabinet began to fall forward as the swell of bodies behind the door had made both constructs give way. John and Herbert quickly pressed against it, stopping its movement, but only slightly. It was a battle of strength and the two were sorely outnumbered. Hands smashed through the side windows and one just narrowly missed ripping Herbert's glasses from his face... or worse. Four more sets of hands pushed on the cabinet as the other men returned with boxes of nails and various instruments to pound them in with. With their strength tripled, the men easily righted the barrier and immediately began to secure it into place. As they did, the sound of windows shattering could be heard from other rooms and the group knew that they were in for a long night.

* * *

"Man, my arms are dead!" an exhausted Spider exclaimed as he re-entered the embalming room with everyone else. The consideration of using a different word, given their circumstances, never even ran across his mind.

They had been busy nailing boards (and anything else they could find) over windows for the past half-hour and everyone was feeling the drain of their frantic work and the adrenaline rush beginning to fade.

After he loaded a fresh clip into his pistol, Ernie confronted his first two guests. Herbert was cleaning his glasses and John was adjusting his hat after wiping sweat from his brow.

"You lied to me," Ernie accused, looking between the two.

"We- um..." John looked to the doctor in hopes of help. The jig was up, that was for sure, but how were they going to explain their way out of it?

"Yes, we did," Herbert replied very matter-of-factually. "We lied to you because we needed to. John's not my patient, his gun isn't missing its firing pin-"

"Yeah, I put two and two together on that when he fired the damn thing! Why the hell did you need to lie?"

"Because," the doctor continued, appearing as if he had finally regained his full composure from earlier, "the truth is just something you wouldn't have believed until maybe, just maybe, now."

"What truth? Try me!" Ernie again tried his best to appear fearsome and tough, holding his gun in a way that both men could clearly see it.

"The truth is that John here is really a cowboy from 1911 and I, until just recently, was from a town that doesn't even exist anymore, but somehow did just a year from now in 1985."

Ernie scrunched his face up in disbelief. "You- what?!"

Herbert continued without allowing the embalmer the slightest reprieve. "I didn't believe it at first, either. I thought John was out of his mind, but recent developments have led me to think otherwise. John and I were at Da-" There was a slight pause as the doctor stopped himself and awkwardly coughed, looking away for a moment. "We were at my apartment and then there was a flash of white light and we found ourselves outside, getting soaked with a stinging rain, probably less than one-hundred yards from your funeral home here."

"Now wait just a minute, this is ridi-"

"Did you just say you came here from out of a white light?" Spider interrupted, having caught interest in what the three were talking about when Ernie abruptly shouted his skepticism.

"Yes, and?" Herbert rebutted.

"I knew it! I fuckin' knew it! Chuck was right; you two are aliens and probably the assholes who started this whole thing! I oughta bash your brains out and feed 'em to those things out there!" Scuz yelled, visibly looking to make good on his threat as he grabbed the hammer that Spider had just placed on the embalming table. If it wasn't for Burt and Spider holding the man back, John very likely would have made a mess of the young man's head with a bullet or two.

"Just stop, Scuz! Shit!" Spider yelled. "They're not aliens or anything! Chuck's a fuckin' moron." There was a moment of resistance as Scuz tried to pry himself free, but he quickly gave up and dropped his weapon.

"Pull your shit together, man! Fuck!" Spider seemed more annoyed than angry or frightened with his words, and the feeling almost became personified when he turned to John and Herbert with an unquestionable look of rawness on his face. "It does seem pretty weird that all this shit started happenin' right around the same time you two came in that flash of light, though."

Now it was Ernie's turn to interrupt. "Wait, that actually happened? You really saw that?"

Spider nodded in confirmation. "And I saw a whole bunch of thick smoke coming outta the chimney on this place just before that damn rain started and those two showed up!"

Herbert caught Burt and Ernie giving each other worried glances at Spider's words.

"If you did start this, though-"

"They didn't start it," Burt finally admitted. "These two geniuses did." He pointed to the very sick duo of Frank and Freddy.

"It hurts," Freddy groaned, staring at the floor blankly as Tina held him.

"What did you do to Freddy? What's wrong with him? And this man?" she asked in an accusatory tone, fighting back tears. Her question was directed towards Burt.

"Yeah, I think it's time you tell us what the fuck's goin' on," Spider demanded.

"I don't have to tell you anything, dickbrain!"

As Spider grabbed ahold of Burt's arm, Scuz brought out a switchblade and made their point crystal clear with a threat of, 'We think you should!'

After some more prodding from both Freddy and Spider, Burt reluctantly shared the story. He had left for the day, but Frank was staying late and teaching Freddy the ropes while he was at it. Somehow the two had released a military-grade chemical into the air that had both poisoned them and reanimated nearly every formerly-living thing in the medical supply warehouse. To further complicate matters, it had somehow soaked into the ground and brought all of the corpses in the graveyard back to life.

By the time Burt had finished, Herbert had put two and two together himself and figured out exactly what had happened.

"You're all to blame. All four of you. Frank, Freddy, Burt and Ernie," he said in a calm tone.

"You'd better watch your tongue!" Ernie warned. "I had nothing to do with this."

"Oh, but you did. You might not have realized it, but you did. Burt, when the chemical leaked, you said that the warehouse was full of resurrected 'things'." Herbert pronounced the word in a stressed, mocking tone and even provided air-quotes. Even when calm and collected, there was a cynical side to him that couldn't be tamed. "Split dogs, the pinned butterflies, everything, right?"

Burt looked around for a moment, trying to understand where this was going before simply nodding his head.

"And Spider, you said you saw thick smoke rising from this place?"

"Yeah, and it didn't look like any kind of normal smoke, neither."

"Aw, shit! Son of a bitch!" Burt suddenly yelled, realizing what Herbert was alluding to, and the fact that he was very likely right.

"You four burned all of those reanimated specimens in the crematorium here, didn't you?" Now there was a sinister smile on Herbert's face and he had to swallow the impulse to begin laughing like a madman.

"Wait, are you- no. No, no, no, no, no." Ernie was befuddled once again, but this time it was because he was actively trying to deny what he understood. "Are you trying to say that we spread the chemical when we burned all those... those things? And it just so happened to rain shortly after we started? No. No, I don't think so."

"Maybe the chemical induced the rain. Like Burt said, we have no idea what it was, just that it is military grade."

"Aw, shit" Ernie ran a hand through his thinning hair, looking very distraught.

"Is that why Freddy's sick? Because of the chemical?" Tina asked.

"I breathed it, Tina. So did- so did Frank there," Freddy answered.

Spider knelt down to comfort his friends. "What did it do to you, Freddy?"

"I'm freezing and my muscles are stiffening up."

"Stiffening up?" Ernie questioned, his curiosity piqued and, momentarily, released him of the torture running through his head that he was a cause of what was happening outside. "Stiffening up how, Freddy?"

The ill punk went on to explain that it started as a bad headache, and then his stomach started cramping up. The cramping moved all over his body, to his arms, his legs... there wasn't a single part of him that wasn't unbearably sore. After Ernie investigated his back and saw a large bruise covering the half he was lying on, clearly showing that blood was pooling in the area, he had to admit that it looked like rigor mortis was setting in. He looked at Herbert, expecting some sort of snide comment or an 'I told you so,' but the doctor was just staring at the two sick men with his arms crossed. The confirmation that the two men were indeed dead and going through the stages of postmortem sent shock waves through everyone in the room, aside from Herbert and John. A brief moment of hysteria broke out as Scuz rationalized that both Frank and Freddy were dead and they were going to turn into the things outside. It caused an already scared Freddy to begin screaming 'No!' and Tina began to cry even harder. Ernie began to try and shake the mania from Scuz when everyone was distracted by Spider.

"Ow! Fuck! What is this shit?!" he yelled.

Herbert looked outright appalled when he realized the delinquent was rooting through his medicine bag. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Just chill out, man, I wasn't tryin' to steal anything. I was tryin' to find some pain pills for those two. Ease up some of that crampin' or somethin'. All I see in here is green shit! What the hell is glowin' in the bottle? Some kinda voodoo medicine bullshit? Cut my palm on this stupid fuckin' green mask you got in here, too."

"What?!" John and Herbert yelled simultaneously. The two looked at each other, expressions of shock and horror growing on their faces.

"Shit! Here we go!" John yelled and both men closed their eyes tightly, squishing up their faces in anticipation of the blinding white light.


	9. The pain of being dead

**Chapter 8 – The pain of being dead**

* * *

A few seconds passed, and then a few more without a single sound. John had a creeping feeling that something was up, as the two transitions he had experienced before felt like they were almost instantaneous, but the seconds he had his eyes closed now seemed to take an eternity to pass. Keeping one eye fully closed, he barely opened the other and began to peek at his surroundings. Much to his surprise, he found that he was still in the exact same spot he was before, standing in the funeral home next to Herbert, but with all eyes on them at the moment, even Frank and Freddy.

"John," Herbert whispered. "John, is it over? What happened? Are we outside again?" His eyelids were still fiercely closed.

"What the fuck is wrong with you two crazy-ass honkies?" Spider bellowed, his sights affixed on the two in complete disbelief.

The doctor's eyes popped open at the utterance from another voice and he looked around the room wildly. "I don't- We didn't? What happened?"

"Dunno," the gunslinger shook his head as he began to approach Spider and the medicine bag.

"Jesus Christ," Ernie whispered, half-laughing, "They _are_ crazy..."

John reached into the bag and brought out the mask to examine it.

"What the fuck, man?" Spider asked, unsure of what was going on, but John ignored him.

On either side of the mask, the eye had grown a complete covering of flesh and the eyelids on the front of it were closed, hiding the ball-shaped organ behind them.

Herbert quickly followed John and grabbed at the artifact to closely examine it himself. "It's... closed? How?"

Before John could answer with another 'Dunno', there was a distant wailing sound that was growing louder and closer by the second. John, Burt, and Ernie went to investigate, peering out of the sliding peephole in the door. Spider was going to follow, but Herbert stopped him, citing that he needed to wrap the bleeding cut on his palm. The youth released a long sigh of discontent, but took a seat near the doctor instead of offering any resistance. The sight of the wound, along with the fact that it was dripping blood everywhere, may have been more than enough to grant compliance. A small smirk appeared on Herbert's lips as he grabbed a small roll of gauze from his bag, as well as two small pads made of the same material. He was curious if Spider was now a part of whatever he and John were, or if it was just the doctor's bad luck to fall prey to such a plight.

The wailing sound turned out to be another paramedic ambulance, and as the two EMTs exited the vehicle and quickly spotted the downed body of the technician who had come before them, all three onlookers began to shout warnings out towards them.

"Watch out!"

"Hey! Don't go over there!"

"Get back into your car!"

It was to no avail, as the EMTs clearly couldn't hear the men over the rain and they went into rescue mode as soon as they spotted the body. In mere seconds, they were quickly swarmed and eaten by the undead, one even being tackled by the horde before meeting his demise.

"They're gonna kill everybody that comes here," Spider lamented, after watching the three men grimace and bow their heads at the door.

Herbert finished his wrap job on Spider's hand (not his best work, but it would do in a pinch) and picked the mask up again, peering towards his cowboy companion.

"With all due respect to those poor souls out there, I'm more concerned with them tryin' to get to us in here," John said, somewhat sullenly.

And almost as if his words had triggered a response, the sound of glass breaking echoed in from the storage room where the caskets were held.

"Keep your Goddamn mouth shut next time, cowboy," Burt sneered.

Herbert watched as the three men turned and came running towards him and he lightly grabbed John by the arm as he passed by him. With eyes darting back and forth, he began to whisper, "John, what about the mask? We need to-"

The gunslinger pulled free rather effortlessly and continued on his path as Scuz brushed past him to join a leaving Spider and the other men. "No time, West. We've got bigger fish to fry at the moment."

As the population of the room became less than half of what it was, the doctor turned his attention to Tina and the dead men. Aside from a small attempt to talk to Dr. Hill's re-animated head, Herbert had never truly had a chance to talk with the resurrected and learn how they feel, what they were thinking and if they could sense a change happening. He stared at them for nearly a minute before deciding to engage. "Frank..." He placed his hands in his pockets and took a few steps towards the trio. "Aside from the pain, can you tell me what you feel like? What your insides feel like right now?"

* * *

The five men frantically ran to the storage room, the room where glass was continuing to break and the groans of the dead were almost terrifyingly deafening. After turning the corner, they were slightly shocked to see a collection of the walking dead had pushed through not only the window, but some of the boards that were halting their advance as well. While four of them began savagely batting at the entering limbs, breaking bones and tearing some appendages off completely, Ernie grabbed one of the fallen boards and attempted to nail it back in place. Scuz quickly picked up the other end and stumbled forward, bracing himself against the other boards. It was at that moment that more hands shot through the opening. Most of them just randomly flailed around, but there was one (literally) bony arm that latched onto Scuz's wrist.

"It's got me! Make it let go!" The young man immediately began to scream and yell, trying to pull himself away, but the force of the corpse was far stronger that he could have imagined. Even with Spider and Ernie forcefully yanking on his stud and pin-riddled jacket, Scuz was violently pulled towards the window (almost out of it) and another bony arm wrapped around the back of his neck. John started hitting the other protruding arms with the butt of his gun, hoping to clear some space so the men could get a better and closer grip on their friend.

"Fuck! Please, come on! Help!" Scuz screamed, the terror and desperation in his voice sending shock waves of the feelings through the men behind him. The grasp of the dead proved to be too much for them to counter and Scuz was pulled halfway out of the broken window, bits of jagged glass sliced into his palm as he hopelessly tried to push himself back inside.

There was some sort of inhumane scream, one that almost sounded like elation, quickly followed by a very harrowing one from Scuz and his body suddenly went limp. Spider and Ernie instantly found that the opposing force had suspended and they hauled Scuz back inside, but as they did, a spray of blood began to coat the crisscrossed boards as a half-decomposed corpse continued to tear into the young man's skull. Burt began to swing the axe he had grabbed in a blind craze, hitting the spine of the creature twice, severing it fully with the second strike. Both bodies fell back into the room; Scuz was dead before he hit the floor, his last scream fading out just as the life was in his eyes.

Spider pinned the corpse to the concrete floor with the head of a sledgehammer while Burt dragged Scuz's dead body away from its reach, John and Ernie were busying themselves by nailing a rather large board over the open space the undead had made in the window.

"What do we do with this thing!? What do we do with this?" Spider yelled as the three other men collected around him, eyeing the wiggling half-body.

"Just- just wait there a second," Ernie bellowed and quickly scampered across the room to grab a reacher hook from the corner. He snagged the hook between the mostly-exposed ribs of the undead woman and instructed Spider to let go of it.

"Are you crazy?!"

"What in the hell are you doing?" John asked hoarsely.

"Look at it," Ernie nodded toward the thing, a half-crazy grin spread across his face. The others threw a quick glance at the body and noticed it had a peculiar look of euphoria on its face, the last bit of Scuz's gray matter falling from its lip-less mouth and splattering on the floor.

"It feels better now."

* * *

"...and ...and it almost feels like my brain is asleep or something, and I can't tell if it feels like it's on fire, or it's tingling or- or if there's, like, a thousand little construction workers in there all hammering away," Freddy said, through sharp breaths of pain, trying his best to help Frank explain just exactly what was happening in their bodies.

Herbert nodded attentively, wearing a look that read as if he was locking every detail of what the two men were saying into his memory... and he was, too. He was learning so much from this small conversation with the two and he was feverishly trying to compartment it all in the appropriate places in his head while he continued to get more information.

"My face." Frank had finally perked up once again after simply becoming lost in space for the second time during their talk. "My face hurts, too, and it's like I have concrete under my skin and it's beginning to harden. It's getting harder and harder to even move my mouth to talk." He looked paler than ever (both men did, actually) and the muscles in his hands and arms were contracting, giving the appearance that the limbs were withering away on his body. "So, what about it, doc? Do you really think we're dead?"

"Well..." Herbert released a single, awkward laugh and nervously began to fiddle with his glasses, rearranging them ever so slightly when they needed no such thing. He wasn't scared to tell the men they were still dead, he just hated dealing with the emotions of others. The dead could be just as unpredictably erratic in a state of panic as any living person could, he knew that well enough, and there was also a highly emotional female in the room as well.

_Women... they really know how to overreact to everything and ruin it,_ Herbert thought to himself.

Suddenly, Tina spoke, as if he triggered a response simply by thinking about her.

"What happened to your face, doctor?" she asked softly, avoiding any long eye contact and merely throwing a quick glance towards the man.

Herbert knew what she was referring to, he had noticed it himself earlier in the bathroom; shades of large bruises were forming on the bottom portion of his face, mostly following the curve of his jaw bone.

"I was attacked." He had thrown the words out without any feeling or conviction to his voice. They were just flat. He was studying her face as he spoke, taking note of if there was any indication that she gave a damn about his answer or if...

She kept her vision fixed on a shivering, shaking Freddy and, even though he couldn't see her face directly, a side view showed him the earmarks of someone who is on the verge of a tearful breakdown. It was then that he realized she hadn't asked him so she would be a part of the conversation, she had asked to simply _stop_ the conversation. She was likely very, very done with hearing that her boyfriend, possibly the love of her life for all he knew, was dead in her arms and slowly continuing to decompose, lose flexibility and grow colder and colder. Somehow, through the wall of misogyny that made up the foremost opinions and expectations he had of the opposite sex, Herbert felt a tinge of sympathy for the young girl's plight and restrained himself from burdening her further.

His respite would not have mattered much in the long run anyway, for mere moments after he decided to ease off the subject there was the sound of loud banging, shuffling feet and shouts, each growing louder and building off the other.

"Ernie, we gotta get the fuck outta here! Leave it! What're ya doin'? Goddamnit, Ernie!"

The comments were made in rapid succession of one another by their critic (Burt) and it only took a moment for four of the five men who left earlier to re-enter the embalming room, one of them arriving with something quite peculiar.

Tina twisted up her face in horror and disgust, screaming when she realized what was being pushed along the floor by Ernie like the bristled head of a scrub brush. Even in their near-catatonic state of being, both Freddy and Frank recoiled in fear at the half-corpse as it was swept by them.

"What in the hell are you doing?!" Tina hollered, her heightened emotions clearly overtaking her voice as it seemed to rise by several octaves. Her concern was completely ignored by the four men as Ernie stopped just short of an empty embalming table.

"Here, help me get it on the table," he huffed, looking back at the other men for a brief moment before returning his fixed gaze to the body on the floor. The thing had made no sounds, no attempts to reach out for anything or anyone since it had satiated itself with Scuz's brain tissue and he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity while he still could.

Neither Burt or Spider moved behind Ernie, both men still just staring at the back of the man in shock, breathing heavily and trying to decide if he had lost his mind or not. John turned slightly, peering over his shoulder towards Herbert. He needed deeply to communicate a non-verbal protest to someone, a silent cry of 'do you see this shit? what are we doing?', but the expression he witnessed on the doctor's face told him the man was viewing the situation from a completely different angle. It was as if Herbert was in a trance, but he looked like the sight of the living remains were more of a pleasant surprise than a gruesome discovery.

"Guys, the table? I can't get this up there by myself!"

"Christ..." Burt muttered under his breath, finally taking a step closer to his friend... and the thing at his feet. The thought of arguing with the mortician briefly crossed his mind, but he quickly reasoned that it would take less time to just pacify the man and have the whole mess done and over with. "Spider, you get the arms and I'll hold its head."

John quickly fetched a large bundle of orange and black truck rope at Ernie's direction and request. As he did so, he watched Herbert slink his way closer to the group, hands in his pockets and gaze averted as if he wasn't actually interested in what was going on. John had a feeling that that was anything but the case. With how interested the man was with the deceased and his preoccupation of reanimating the poor souls instead of just letting the dead stay dead, there was little doubt that his interest was heavily piqued by what was going on on the embalming table.

"I don't understand what you want with it, Ernie," Burt rumbled, sounding truly at a loss as to what his companion's intentions could be. He watched the creature's eyes flutter back and forth between the gathering men as he and Ernie tied the thing down. Its mouth was agape and it seemed to be in awe, taking in all that was happening around it. It wasn't the rotted-off lips or exposed, blood-stained teeth that got to Burt, it wasn't even the spinal fluid leaking from its served backbone or the way its fake, press-on nails (still somehow attached to the bony, decayed fingers of the beast) would skitter across the skin on the back of his hand while the hands they were attached to clutched at the empty air. No, it was the thing's eyes that got to him the most. He would have expected them to be just as dead as their owner, milky and glazed over, maybe even shriveled prunes of what the icy orbs used to be, but they seemed to be the most alive thing about her. The bright blue irises were crystal clear, and they followed the men with a clarity that sent chills through all of them in their own way. "I mean what are we doing with it?!"

"I wanna examine it!" Ernie exclaimed with a sincere note of excitement in his words.

A visibly eager Herbert suddenly rushed to the table, delivering a slight bump to Burt in the process. "That sounds like the most logical thing anyone has said all night!"

His enthusiasm was met with awkward stares from all but the undead for a moment.

Spider, taking note of the creature's movements, eventually piped up. "Man, you make sure it's tied right."

"It'll be tied right," Ernie assured, applying one last knot to the restraints.

"I mean, it's not gonna get loose, right?"

The mortician released a laugh, as if the question was child-like in nature when three of the five men standing around the table were worried about the same thing. "No, it's not gonna get loose. They're no stronger than humans."

John wanted to call bullshit on the man's statement, especially considering the thing on the table, the body that was almost completely rotted to nothing but bone, had yanked a young, sturdy adult right out of a window when there were two other men pulling in the opposite direction. Before he could call the Ernie's bluff however, the woman snapped her head upwards towards Spider, releasing a guttural hiss and biting its jaw at him. All five men jumped back slightly, Spider even raising the sledgehammer in his hand as if he meant to smash the beast's head in, but he was quickly halted by Ernie.

"Don't be afraid!" he spat out, shifting his gaze equally between the other four.

"I'll buss' it in the damn head! Are you sure that thing's tied good?"

Ernie ignored the young man's continued concern and turned his attention to the bound cadaver, leaning onto the table so he was practically on top of the thing. "You can hear me?"

"Yessss," the woman slowly hissed in reply. It raised up slightly and Ernie moved his head back in accordance.

"Why do you eat people?" he asked.

"Not people," the woman corrected. "Brains!" She sounded almost excited to say the word.

"Brains only?" Ernie inquired and was met with another long, hissing 'yes' in return. "Why?"

"The _pain_!" she cried out in a tone that reeked of genuine agony.

"What about the pain?"

"The pain of being _dead_!"

Ernie straightened himself into a standing position and looked at the other men in a wonderstruck gaze. An equally dazed and surprised laugh escaped him. "It hurts to be dead." The way he repeated the words made it sound as if he was trying to wrap his head around the revelation they had exposed.

"I can feel myself _rot_!" Her cleft spine clanged against the thin metal of the embalming table, splashing in a puddle of spinal fluid and sending small drops of the liquid in every direction. To John, her gruesome, twitching backbone almost resembled the waving tail of a canine that spotted something interesting. He shivered at the thought of mixing such horribly contrasting ideas.

Ernie leaned in again. "Eating brains- how does that make you feel?"

She clasped at his shirt with her bony fingers and the surrounding men jumped back again, Ernie even stuttering at the end of his question.

"It makes the pain go away." Again there was an eerie sense of calm in the woman's voice, leading some of the men to believe that the activity of eating brains was not only a pain relieving one, but delightfully calming to the dead as well.

"Fascinating," Herbert muttered, adjusting his glasses and peering at the corpse with a sliver of appreciation about him. "Absolutely fascinating."

"Hey, look man, fuck this. I gotta talk to you..." Spider blurted, gently pulling Ernie away from the table and motioning for the others to follow. "Now. Out in the hallway. C'mon."

While Spider, Burt, Ernie and John all disappeared behind the metal door that led to the room's exit, Herbert stayed behind, entranced by the spectacle in front of him. This was, by far, the most amazing thing he had ever witnessed. In many respects, it outshined his reagent. He simply had to get his hands on whatever could not only reanimate the dead like this, but seemingly allow them to be fully cognizant as well. The 'brain eating' issue was a downside for sure, but not one that he was busying himself with fussing over just yet. He had only had this kind of success once and it was with a very fresh corpse. This specimen proved that age was truly only an issue for reanimation if you were concerned with looks and the fragility of the unit.

"What- what can you remember from before?" he asked, a fiery look of intensity so stern across his face that a lone vein could be seen throbbing in his forehead. "Before this- before you came back."

"Everything." The reply was abrupt and immediate. Her cold blue eyes almost pierced his as they connected with one another and Herbert involuntarily trembled where he stood for a moment.

"You can remember death? How you died?" he continued, undeterred by his quiver, for he did not know if it was caused by fear or excitement at her answer.

The woman turned her head, staring straight up into the ceiling. "A man," she recalled. "Wrapped his hands around my neck. Large, dirty... cold hands. He kept squeezing, kept saying he was sorry over and over. I couldn't reply, couldn't scream, couldn't fight back. Then everything went black."

A genuine smile spread across Herbert's lips. He wasn't glad that the woman had been murdered (that was a trivial fact that meant nothing to the man), but the fact that she could remember it (and so clearly) made him ecstatic. This chemical, whatever and wherever it was, was the missing piece of the puzzle he had been looking for all these years. It wasn't perfect, no, but he could make it perfect. A ball of happiness burst within the doctor and he could have sworn someone had just injected a shot of serotonin directly into his brain. The comparison made him realize something, and he spread his arms as the four men entered the room again. They were all genuinely perplexed and a little creeped-out by the tight smile on his face.

"I figured it out!" he exclaimed.

"What the hell's wrong with you, West? You screwed in the head or somthin'?" John asked, instantly perturbed by his associate.

Herbert's smile didn't falter. "Endorphins!" His statement was met with silence and blank stares, except for Ernie, who seemed to be following along with the philosophy. "The brain! The brain makes a natural opiate, a painkiller, that is produced when a human body goes through a horribly painful event... like having your head ripped into."

"So?" Spider asked, a hint of indignity wafting in his voice.

"So," Ernie spoke up, nodding to the body on the gurney, "it hurts to be dead, and what better way to alleviate that, to make it 'go away', than by triggering a quick dose of natural painkillers you merely have to bite into?"

"Exactly!" Herbert mused.

"Great. So we're just a temporary relief for these fuckers?" Distraught, Spider kicked at the wheeled table, causing the creature on it to moan in discomfort. His eyes flashed towards Frank, Freddy and Tina and his heart sank a little at the sight. The men were shaking uncontrollably, skin was sickly pale ('ghost white' if he had ever seen such a thing), beads of sweat dripping off their faces like they were in a sauna. And their arms... their arms looked just as stiff and rigid as a new action figure; knuckles knotting up and fingers horribly hooked in ways that made Spider rub at his own hands empathetically. Frank and Freddy were at the end of their rope, no doubt about it, and he knew something had to be done before the two men started trying to eat _his_ brains. He didn't want to give up on Freddy or fear for his life because of his friend, but they couldn't just ignore the inevitable. Solemnly, he turned to the rest of the group. "We, um... we need to deal with them before they become a problem... before we become their temporary relief."


	10. Conscious Weighs Heavy

**Chapter 9 – Conscious Weighs Heavy**

* * *

The idea of 'containing' Frank and Freddy was met with instant disdain and vitriol from Tina, but she found herself agreeing with the notion once Spider backed the opinion as well. Of the five men making the suggestion, Tina only trusted the voice of her friend, and she knew that he wouldn't want to lock Freddy in a room unless there was a good reason to do so. The service area (or 'Wee Chapel of the Dawn' as Ernie had so aptly named the small space) was quickly decided upon as being the room the two sick men would be contained in and, even with a determined protest from Spider and a reminder that she would be locked in with both men, Tina refused to leave Freddy's side at their new location.

"I'll stay, too," John quickly proposed, raising his hand slightly to no one in particular and looking at the gaping faces of the four other men.

"What are you, an idiot?" Herbert spat out in protest. He may not have been Daniel Cain, but the good doctor was starting to grow comfortable in the company of John Marston (not that he would ever admit such a thing) and did not entirely wish to see it end with an act of stupidity. Chivalrous stupidity at that. He lowered his voice to just above a whisper when he realized how loud he had been. "Don't let that girl's dumb choice put _your_ life in danger."

John listened to his friend's hissed words of warning, but merely shrugged them off. "Our lives are already in danger, West, just take a look outside for proof of that. 'Sides, if they start acting funny, the lady and I will make enough noise for you four brave gents to come save our foolish souls."

Herbert rolled his eyes and let out a huff of discontent; John's biting sarcasm was still something he was becoming adjusted to. There was no use arguing with the gunslinger at this point though, he knew that.

* * *

As the four men returned to the embalming room, all arguing about the best plan of escape, Spider shushed the group's squabbling, quickly making his way to the door as his ears confirmed the sound of a rumbling engine approaching.

"What is it?" Herbert asked as the punk positioned himself in front of the sliding peephole.

Spider shook his head. "Not sure. Maybe another ambulance." He moved the covering slowly, trying to make sure there wasn't a hand waiting to fly in from the outside and grab his face. "Cops. It's the cops," he confirmed at the sight of the Chrysler Newport with the red and blue flashers on top of it. Burt and Ernie hastily crowded towards the door slit, eager to see what was going on and determine if they could use this opportunity to get everyone out of the damned mortuary and into a safe place. Herbert pushed his way into the cluster as well, not wanting to be the odd man out in all of the excitement. Everyone jockeyed for position, intended shouts of distress being cut short by a bump or nudge from someone else who planned to do the same. A yell from outside caused each man to freeze in their spot and stare with horrified looks at the events that unfolded in front of them.

"Hold it right there!"

The officers were out of their vehicle and had been cautiously moving closer to the ambulance, trying to gauge the eerie quiet that enveloped the scene they arrived at. It didn't take more than a minute for the undead to start engaging their targets, moving out from their hidden spots behind trees, cars and other visually-obstructing objects.

"Freeze or I'll blow your fucking brains out!" the other officer yelled, his partner letting out a blast from his shotgun a moment later. That was all it took to spark the chaos and both officers opened full fire on the encroaching mass of bodies; their bullets proving to be completely useless to stop the horde.

The four individuals watched as the policemen were surrounded and then attacked by the collection of living dead, each expressing their own form of disappointment.

"This place," Ernie stated in a defeated voice, "everybody that comes in... gets swallowed up." He slid the peephole cover shut again as the other men slinked back into the center of the room, hearts and hopes quite noticeably shaken.

"Well, what are we gonna do?" Spider asked, taking a seat atop Ernie's work desk. "Stand around here beatin' our meat 'til the corpses bust in this damn place? There ain't no way to stop those things; we gotta get the fuck out."

"We gotta get to the cars," Burt insisted, placing his hands on his hips and half-agreeing with the younger man.

"There's corpses all over the cars!"

"I know that!"

"What are you proposing?" Ernie jutted in, trying to avoid another clash that would deteriorate the conversation into arguments.

Spider pointed to himself, a look of surprise overtaking him briefly. "What am I proposin'? I think we all should do some damn proposin'! What about you, Doctor Whatever-your-name is? You've been awfully quiet."

"West. Doctor Herbert West," Herbert sneered, contempt seething in his voice. "And Burt is right; we need to get to the cars. They're our only chance to get away from these things and actually make a plan for what to do after that."

"Or..." Ernie chimed in, his gaze drifting up above him. "The crawlspace in the ceiling." He pointed to the opening with his index finger. "We could go up, barricade ourselves in. The only way up is through the hatch and we could nail that shut." Though he sounded confident in his words, the look on the man's face read that he knew that idea was sketchy at best.

Spider read Ernie's facial expression as well, and lost all interest in the idea. "You must be out of your fuckin' mind." He waved off the proposal. "I'm not barricadin' myself in no damn roof. Shit, I'd rather take my chances with the cars."

"We need a way to fight 'em," Burt relayed, feeling fairly confident that everyone was on the 'go for the cars' train now. While Burt, Herbert and Spider all looked around, trying to find something better than the melee weapons thay had in their hands, Ernie walked over to a metal shelving unit and grabbed a glass bottle of liquid.

"How about this?" He held the jar up for all to see, almost presenting it like a QVC model trying to sell a cheap item in a shiny skin.

Everyone looked, but it was Spider who asked the obvious question. "What is it?"

"It's nitric acid. Pretty much destroy anything."

"Yes, and we can use it if we just want to piss those things off." Herbert was rather nonchalant in both tone and mannerism when he spoke, garnering disapproving stares from the other occupants of the room. "Look, there's hardly any acid in that jar when you compare it to the mass amounts of brain-eating bodies outside and even still, these things don't respond to pain like you or I would. They may feel it and scream out, but they won't cower back from it. If anything, I can see a mild reaction at best before one of them grabs at you with its nitric acid-laced hand and sears whatever part of you it touched with a burning pain before biting into your skull."

After a few more moments of stunned silence, Spider once again broke the silence by speaking a collective thought. "You really are an asshole, you know that?"

"And those things really are smarter and more resilient than we're giving them credit for, you know that?" Herbert spat back. "Did you see what happened out there, hmm Spider? Did you?" He did not wait for a confirming nod or peep from the punk. "They weren't out there stumbling around, moaning and groaning when the cops came, were they? Noooo. They were hiding, biding their time until the two idiots were out in the open and they could swarm them. It may not be the most popular notion that these creature fascinate me, but just think about it! They're conscious, calculating and deliberate in their actions. That was some sort of coordinated ambush out there. Don't try to tell me it wasn't!"

The others were silent during Herbert's tirade. All of them realizing that he had solid points to which there were no counter arguments to be made. With this understanding came a deepening fear of what was just beyond the door, and even deeper doubt about how they were going to get through it.

"Not only that," Herbert continued, unabated by the silent stares and drooping faces, "but they're one whole hell of a lot tougher than we are. Those officers unloaded the capacity of their weapons on them and not a single one of them dropped before it was dinner time. We've swung axes, metal pipes, sledgehammers and whatever else we could find at them and they just kept pushing forward. The only thing we have put up that has stopped them are barriers, and sooner or later they will make it through those, too. Forget about fighting them, gentlemen. Those cars are our _only_ hope."

* * *

The screams and moans inside the chapel from the two sick men were reaching unbearable volumes. John had winced at the cries so often that his face began to hurt, and his ears ached... not only from the piercing wails, but from him sticking his fingers in them to block out the noise, too. It was hard to even look at the men anymore. Red, puffy circles of irritated flesh rounded their eyes, while foaming red-ish secretions of God-knows-what oozed from their mouths in goopy, clumped streams.

The girl though... John had to admire her willpower, her strength, her love for the man who was dying in her arms. It was that personal determination in her that reminded him of his lovely Abigail. She had the same drive, the same force in her... and seeing it again made the cowboy sick with a longing to be back home again, to be with his family again and just have this whole nightmare truly be that... a nightmare. He stayed with Tina to protect the girl, yes, but if he was going to be truthful with himself, he also stayed because she was the closest he had felt to home since he was ripped away from it all, and he needed that near him.

John listened to Freddy scream and watched Tina try to console him while fighting back a flood of tears that were slowly breaking through her attempts to quell them.

"It hurts!" Freddy groaned, half gargling the words out through the frothy sputum working its way up his system. "It hurts more than you can imagine!"

John had no doubt the boy had never spoke truer words in all his life. Suddenly Freddy's face lost all expression and his eyes widened. John had witnessed this look countless times. Hell, he had _caused_ it countless times. It was the look of death, and with it, at least, John hoped that Freddy's soul would finally be at rest and his suffering no more. Just to be on the safe side, however, John crept closer to the duo and hovered his hand over the butt of his revolver. As he watched the young man's eyes roll back into his head and his chest cease to heave, the repetition of Scuz's words echoed in John's head.

_You're dead! You're dead , man, and you're gonna turn into one of those things out there!_

The gunslinger shook his head and pleaded internally, _Please let him be wrong. Please._

"Freddy!" Tina mourned and began to bawl instantly, followed by a short stint of shaking her beau before finally burrowing her head in the crevice between his shoulder and neck and letting loose with her storm of anguish. John thought better of what he was doing for a moment, of allowing the girl some space to grieve properly, but he noticed Freddy's eyes pull back down into the center of his eyelids. They looked clear, concentrated... and driven, just like the female half-corpse in the embalming room.

John inhaled sharply at the sight, lowering his hand and embracing his gun's grip with a tight hold.

As a sick smile spread across Freddy's face and he tilted his head slightly, garnering Tina's attention.

John spoke out, softly at first, "Miss..."

Tina didn't pay attention, a look of relief washing over her face as her boyfriend's continued movement.

"I can finally see the one thing..." Freddy spoke with a clarity that had been lost in his voice ever since he began to feel sick. "The one thing only that can relieve this horrible suffering."

John tried again, inching closer and raising his voice slightly. "Miss..."

Again Tina could not hear his words, her focus too heavy on Freddy, watching him as he slide in her arms slightly to face her. "What, Freddy?" It was clear that all she wanted to do was help him feel better, to stop his screams and his pain.

"Live brains!" Freddy yelled, reaching back and grabbing a clump of Tina's hair.

John cursed at his slowed reaction, only making it to the pair in time to kick the crazed man in the face a mere moment after his girlfriend had managed to push him away from her. A glass-shattering scream escaped her mouth at the realization that she was just inches and moments from being Freddy's favorite food instead of his favorite girl. She scampered to the other side of the room as a deafening shot rang out in the confined space, bouncing off the walls and increasing the noise tenfold.

John had drawn his weapon and shot the now-resurrected Freddy in the left leg, right in the meat of his upper thigh. Before he could warn the young man to stay down he was almost on his feet again, so John fired another well-placed round right into Freddy's right foot. The man had screamed with each shot that hit him, but the deterrent only seemed momentary.

"Stay do-" John began to command, but fired two more rounds in quick succession right into Freddy's chest when he was once again rushed. John knew that the thing he was shooting at was no longer human, no longer Freddy, but he still hated having to take these extreme measure in front of a lady regardless, much less with one that was romantically entangled with his target beforehand.

Freddy fell back with each blast to his chest, but he did not fall down. He looked at his bloodied shirt before releasing another inhumane growl, strands of red spittle flying from his lips with the force of air he released. John fired one more bullet, directly at the undead's head , and watched the creature fall back forcefully with the hit. The gunslinger promptly made his way to a seemingly frozen Tina and gently, but quickly, guided her passed the three rows of pews to the locked double-door entrance. If the others weren't there yet, they didn't have time to wait for the doors to be unlocked; John would simply have to bust through them. One of the sick men had already turned and, now that he thought about it, the cowboy had no idea where the other man was anymore. He had become lost in the chaos that quickly erupted.

Another bizarre grunt flared from behind him and John turned on his heel to see Freddy was back on his feet, blood streaming from the fresh gunshot wounds riddling his body. Raising his gun again, John moved his other arm back behind him, shielding the girl and making sure she did not dart out into danger.

There was an empty 'click' sound as he pulled the trigger, the barren cylinder rotating to the next, equally barren chamber. He had spent five bullets on Freddy already and forgot to reload the shot he wasted outside on the other corpse. His five remaining bullets were nestled tightly in the bullet loops on the back of his belt.

"Shit!" John yelled, part in fear and part in surprise. He didn't have time to unsheathe his knife and slash away; Freddy was already barreling over the pews that divided them, teeth bared and ready for chomping. There was little time to even brace for impact and all John could do was draw his arm back and in front of his face, a last resort form of protection.

_So, this is it?_ The thought flew through his mind and if he could have placed a tone to the question it would've been utter disappointment. The man had faced more gun barrels than he would ever admit to, held by both outlaws and lawmen alike, and he had _always_ been the one who walked away, and now some drooling dead kid was going to be the cause of his eternal rest? It wasn't as if John had any ambitions of going out in a fantastic blaze of glory, as he would much rather just have passed in his sleep next to his Abigail, but he would certainly take almost anything over this kind of ending. It wasn't proper... it wasn't right.

Out of his peripheral vision, the gunslinger could spot Tina's tiny frame racing passed him, a blur of something held in her arms as she moved forward. With a savage grunt, the girl propelled a metal candlestick (the thing being almost as tall as she was) into her undead boyfriend's midsection. The hit knocked Freddy back, tumbling into the pews and overturning one of them. Tina backed up, tripping over her own feet and falling only for a moment before being caught and steadied by John's strong hands. At the same time he broke the woman's fall, the chapel's doors burst open with Burt and Spider flying into the room. The already-chaotic area swiftly turned into pure pandemonium as both men tried to down the returned Freddy with repeated blows from their weapons. No matter where they hit the young man, nor how hard, the determined corpse kept getting back up, nearly biting both men during the short scuffle. After quickly handing Tina off to Herbert just outside of the chapel entrance, John tried to jump into the fray and help the two men subdue their rabid opponent, but Ernie, who had been hovering in the background since the fight started, beat him to the punch when the opportunity arose and splashed the entire bottle of nitric acid across Freddy's face. As the living corpse screamed in agony and began to writhe on the floor, everyone retreated from the room and slammed the doors shut.

While the mortician once again locked the chapel, John tried to regain his focus, watching as Spider picked Tina up from her near-catatonic fetal position on the floor.

He spun around suddenly, looking every way he could before spinning around once again. "Where's West?" he asked, but no one answered him. "Hey! Where's the damn doctor?" he roared in frustration as Spider and Burt continued to seemingly ignore him and move forward.

"I'd stop worrying about the doctor and be more concerned with your own ass!" Ernie offered as he ran passed John, towards the other men.

"Goddammit, West!" the gunslinger shouted, picking up his pace.

There was no Herbert when the group made it back to the embalming room, and John's anger soon turned to concern over the missing man's well-being. A quick glance near the couch displayed that the doctor's medicine bag was still where it had been left after Spider's wound had been attended to, and John had a strong feeling that it wasn't something that would just be left behind considering how concerned West was about its whereabouts after the incident at the morgue. And, now that he was really thinking about things, it occurred to the gunslinger that he had lost track of Frank while Freddy was attacking him. They were both out there somewhere, beyond that door, and John had no idea who he'd run into first if he went looking. The fear was rather moot, as their stay in the room lasted for no longer than five minutes (most of it spent by the group trying to calm a crumbling Spider) and was interrupted by the sounds of banging and crashing echoing from down the hallway. Someone was trying to get in or out of part of the funeral home, and if they didn't put a stop to it, that someone would be successful.

* * *

Herbert clung to the walls as he crept back to the embalming room, the distance between him and the banging in the hallway becoming shorter and shorter with each step. It was Freddy, he reasoned, it had to be. The thought of anyone else having turned so quickly was somewhat unsettling to him, especially after witnessing how aggressive the hunger could make the creatures. Then again, he also just learned that even though the primitive instincts for survival were strong, they could be overcome. Frank was a shining example of that. Well, more like a 'burning' example now, as the case turned out to be.

Herbert had followed Frank after watching him creep out of the chapel and scuttle down the hall. John had nearly ruined the whole thing by placing a shaking, sobbing Tina into the doctor's arms, as if she was now _his_ responsibility, but luckily for Herbert, Tina was in an unresponsive stupor and he simply let the female slide out of his grip and into a heap on the floor. Satisfied that she would be fine with the wall of men between her and Freddy, Herbert disappeared down the hall after Frank. When he finally found him, it was not at all where he would have expected him to be: the funeral home's on-site crematorium. Herbert's jaw dropped as he silently watched the man and understood what he was doing through his actions. As the machine came to life, bathing the room with a glowing, flickering light, it became apparent that Frank had no intentions of eating any brains. He merely wanted to change his new existence the only way he knew worked, and that was by incinerating himself. It was a grisly notion, and one that made the doctor's gut sink just thinking about it, but he continued to watch nonetheless. Frank slid his wedding band off his finger and brought it to his lips, delivering on last kiss to it before sliding the ring over one of the machine's many switches. Falling to his knees, he held his hands up in prayer and uttered his last words, 'Forgive me.'

The words horrified Herbert almost as much as the man's actions, for their context spoke volumes about just how "human" the living corpse still was. As Frank entered the crematory and the large door slid shut (by this point it was certain there was no way for Frank to escape from his own decision), Herbert composed himself once again and realized he needed to find the others quickly. The man's screams of agony bored into his ears and would not soon be forgotten, and they only made him hasten his exit.

As he turned the corner, finally rounding the bend to the area where the chapel was, Herbert almost ran right into John's larger frame.

"There you are!" John breathed.

The doctor smiled slightly, but the gesture fell from his face when he noticed how angry the cowboy suddenly appeared. John grabbed at either side of Herbert's lab coat and pulled him close, lifting him off the ground slightly.

"You little rat!" the gunslinger yelled. "Leaving the girl like that; what the hell is wrong with you?"

"S-s-she was fine!" Herbert protested, stuttering in his defense.

With a hearty thrust, John threw the man to the ground; the intent to knock some sense into him written clearly on his face.

A loud 'Ooooof!' escaped Herbert's lips as he collided with the floor and the wind was knocked out of him. His diaphragm froze, leaving the man unable to suck in a breathe no matter how hard he tried. It passed after a moment, but once he inhaled a large gulp of air, he immediately began to cough violently, his already sore and stinging lungs not ready for the rapid reintroduction of oxygen. "You-" Herbert tried, but another cough cut him off, the pain in his ribs becoming so bad that it was cutting through the mild-wall that the ibuprofen had created. "Not all of us want to be heroes, John. Your conscious may weigh heavy for these people, but mine doesn't!"

Upon uttering the bitter words, Herbert knew instantly that he had made a mistake. John's face hardened to a look that would've certainly killed if it was in the realm of possibilities and the doctor quickly backtracked, throwing his hands up upon the sight of the gunslinger's advancing movement.

"Wait!" A sudden, unexpected fear had overwhelmed Herbert from the thought of a real physical assault at the hands of an able-bodied John. "Frank left the chapel!"

John stopped, but the glow of anger did not dim in his eyes at all.

"I had to- I had to follow him! I had to make sure he wasn't going to ambush us or break down the boards and let more of those things in!"

"Well, where the hell is he?" Outrage still seethed from John's voice, and he still had half a mind to deliver a swift kick or two to the doctor.

"He's not... a concern anymore."

John released a pert sound of amusement from his mouth, his fierce grimace loosening slightly. "And here I thought you just said your conscious didn't weigh heavy for these people. So why even bother followin' Frank? Makin' sure he wasn't a concern no more? You care, West; you may not know it, but you do."

The thought of countering John popped into the doctor's head; all ideas of contrary reasons why Herbert had done what he had done flowing into his head. But he stilled them there, not at all interested in reigniting the fire under John and endanger his own safety at the same time.

The sound of Ernie yelling out in pain and falling backwards broke the two out of their back and forth. Burt and Spider had grabbed a wooden bench to place in front of the splintering chapel doors and Ernie attempted to help them place it, but only ended up getting in the way when Spider dropped his end on the floor, right on top of the mortician's foot.

John attended to the fallen man while Herbert scampered to his feet, still unsure of if the tension had been diffused or not.

After wedging the piece of furniture as close to the doors as they could, all four men rushed back to the embalming room, John and Burt helping Ernie limp along.

As they passed by the storage room, Herbert peered inside and was surprised to see the body of Scuz lying on the floor. He had forgotten all about the young man once he disappeared.

_Out of sight, out of mind,_ he chimed in his head. But now he wasn't out of sight. Scuz's bloodied face and lifeless body were less than twenty feet away and something about it read oddly to Herbert. The problem was that he didn't know what was sending him such strange signals about it, and he had no time to figure it out either.

* * *

"We can't stay here no more man. He's gonna come bustin' through that door in a minute!" Spider commented, helping to ease Ernie into a chair as Burt went back to lock the door.

"We gotta run for the cars!" They were running out of time and their safe place would no longer be safe. Burt knew this and affirmed their best plan of action.

Spider moved towards Tina, trying his best to check on the girl who had curled herself into a ball, burying her face in the couch cushions. "There's zombies all over the cars outside."

Herbert silently brought a spare chair over to the mortician and sat it in front of him, motioning for the man to elevate his foot on it. Both men began to examine his injured appendage, and after only a few seconds, they exchanged silent, knowing looks of concern.

"Gotta fight our way through 'em. There's no other way. If we can get to a car and start moving, I think we'll be alright." Burt was trying to stay as optimistic as he could, given the circumstances.

"That's a big fuckin' 'if', man."

Ernie began to shake his head. "I can't walk..."

"Much less run," Herbert added, the dry, cynical tone returning to his voice.

"How bad is your foot, Ernie?" Burt asked, stooping down to be at eye level with his friend. Spider joined at the opposite side.

"Broke," the man replied with a sigh, trying to remove his shoe and feeling how swollen his ankle was getting and the familiar impression of fractured bone shifting under the skin when even a slight pressure was applied to it. He had ran into the abnormality enough on cadavers, but he himself had been lucky enough to never experience a broken bone before in his life... until tonight.

Herbert smoothed his hand over the growing lump atop Ernie's foot once the shoe was removed. He winced slightly at the sound of the mortician sucking in a painful breath when he pushed on an area of interest. "Hmm," the man hummed, staring at the bloated extremity intently. "Without an x-ray, I can't be completely sure, but I would guess that you have one, if not several, fractured metatarsal bones here."

With the discovery, the group had some decisions to make and plans to adjust. Burt stood by the door and looked out of the sliding peep hole one more time, trying to weave a safe pattern from the door to the one of the many cars parked around the backside of the mortuary.

"Okay," he finally broke the silence in the room. "Spider, John and I will get one of the cars..."

Herbert and John exchanged glances at the mention of the cowboy's name. There was a hitch in this plan already and they needed to speak up about it before it went into action.

"We'll bring it up here to the door-"

"Police car," the young punk interrupted. "It should still have the keys in the ignition."

Burt looked outside again, directly ahead, and noticed something that made him smile. "Son of a bitch- the motor's still running!"

"Good. I'll drive."

"No." He looked back at Spider with his smile turning almost pompous, as if he somehow knew the kid was, in actuality, a rather horrible driver. "I'll drive."

"Hey, fuck you!"

Burt ignored the childish outburst and continued on. "Now look, when we drive up, I don't wanna hang out there any longer than necessary, so, young lady," he reached out to Tina, who had somewhat regained her composure and was standing next to the door while Burt talked, "you stand right here. Put one hand here and one hand here." He placed her hands exactly where he wanted them to be so she would be ready when he needed her to be. "When I say 'now', you open the door fast and the minute we're through you slam it shut, and lock it."

Tina simply nodded her head frantically in place of a spoken reply.

Burt looked at the mortician, who appeared to be lost in space, staring at the swollen mass on his foot. "Ernie, get your ass over here at the door. You too, doctor."

"We need to, uh..." Herbert began as he walked towards the group at the door, his medicine bag nearly clutched to his chest.

"We need to switch the order a little here." John had followed directly behind the doctor and spoke up on his behalf.

"What?" Burt squinted. "What are you talking about?"

"You two take West with you to fetch a car and I'll stay behind with Ernie and the lady here."

Herbert's expression changed to shock. That wasn't what he was going to suggest at all. He was going to have John stay inside with him and the others, because if the car plan fell apart and they lost the men attempting to pull it off, they couldn't afford for John to be one of the casualties. Now that their roles were switched, however, Herbert was even more perturbed. "What?! No, that-"

"Look, we need someone who can move fast and carry these two for a coupla feet if needed, right? You think you can do that, West, or you want me to?"

Herbert didn't reply. He was between a rock and a hard spot, really, as the chances of Ernie needing help were almost guaranteed, and it would take even longer for four addition people to try to quickly jam themselves into a vehicle. By the same standards though, he wasn't a fighter and he could barely run. Even jogging up the stairs from Dan's basement usually caused him to huff and wheeze for a few minutes.

"Alright, fine," Burt mumbled, settling the matter before Herbert could further protest. "Everybody stand by."

Herbert gulped audibly. There was no further time to plan and anxiety was practically boiling over in him as he was about to run around a mass of the undead like a chicken with its head cut off.

Ernie handed the doctor a bone mallet and offered a sympathetic look before relaying one last piece of advise. "Watch your ass out there. All of you." With a grim look on his face, he nodded to Burt.

Burt returned the gesture with a smile, but the rest of his expression had the same hopeless appearance to it. He took in a deep breath and held the length of pipe he had with both hands.

"Now!"


	11. Friends?

**Chapter 10 – Friends?**

* * *

Tina tugged the door open and Burt quickly ran out, followed by Spider. Herbert tried to move at the same pace but stumbled in his footing slightly before Tina slammed the door shut, hitting the doctor in the shoulder with it and pushing him outside. Spider and Burt were already making headway, swinging their weapons and moving forward at the same time. If Herbert didn't move soon, he would be chow for the undead, as they were quickly filling in the path the other men had just made. But he was frozen with fear, even the throb from his shoulder not permeating it, until John's voice shouted from behind him.

"Go!"

The doctor glanced back to see his companion's face peering through the peep hole and the barrel of his gun sliding into view as well. Herbert jolted forward and hoped that John was a good aim with a mass of moving targets.

Three shots rang out as Herbert joined the others, and they all turned around to see that there was literally a wall of the walking dead between them and the mortuary. There was no going back now, no matter what. If things went to shit they were all dead, and that extra bit of fear motivated each man to push a little harder as they neared the police car.

Surprisingly, the doctor was the first to make it. Though the two front doors were wide open, he quickly opened the back passenger door and got in, assuming that the dead would be nipping at the heels of the other two and even a split-second spent opening a door could be the death of them. Spider and Burt were in the car before the doctor could even shut his door, and the dead were covering the vehicle almost instantly. A hand reached in through the rolled-down passenger-side window and attempted to grab Spider. Herbert bashed at the forearm with his hammer, losing the tool once it became embedded in a gash it had opened up. Spider shoved the man away from the door and quickly rolled up his window.

"Thanks, man," he acknowledged, validating Herbert's efforts.

The police car shot forward, running over several of the swarm while a few others jumped onto the hood and climbed onto the roof. Everything was happening so fast that Herbert couldn't think, he couldn't calculate what was occuring or what to do next. As the vehicle jerked to a stop in front of the mortuary, bodies of the undead flying from the hood and roof to crumpled heaps on the ground before stirring once again, it became quite apparent that this part of the plan, the whole backbone of it really, was shot to hell. The car was crowded again, this time with even more bodies, and the mass was so thick that nothing but hands, feet and rotting faces could be seen from the windows of the car.

"We gotta get closer, man. They're never gonna make it like this!"

Spider was absolutely correct in his statement, as anyone who even tried to go near the car at this point would simply be fulfilling a death wish, but Burt knew there was no 'getting closer' anymore. The small window of opportunity they had was closed, slammed shut... and now it was time for a plan B when there was no plan B.

Burt tried to look back behind him, but the rear window was just as obscured with bodies as the front windshield was. The car began to rock back and forth as the corpses outside pushed violently, attempting to overturn the automobile.

"We gotta split! We gotta split!" the warehouse owner finally conceded, throwing the car into reverse.

Spider shook his head in protest. "No, we can't split!"

His objection on the issue didn't matter, as Burt rammed his foot on the gas and shot the vehicle, and all three men inside, backwards. A quick twist of the wheel and the car spun around back onto the road, flying forward as Burt shifted gears.

"What are ya doin'? We can't just leave 'em!" Spider was almost beside himself in both shock and disdain at what was happening.

"They would've turned the Goddamn car over. We'll send help."

The car weaved through scattered bunches of the undead as Burt tried to navigate the crumbled asphalt and verbally justify his actions at the same time.

"Bullshit! Those are my fuckin' friends back there!"

"I said we'll send help, man!"

"Coward!"

"Fuck you!"

Herbert turned in his seat while the two argued, looking back at the hoard of bodies that were becoming smaller and smaller with distance. He had to wonder about Spider's declaration and how he had used the word 'friends'. Plural, not singular.

As far as the doctor knew, Tina was the only one of Spider's original friends there who was still among the living, so he must have been referring to John and Ernie in his argument as well.

_Could you really be friends with someone you just met a few hours ago? Especially under these circumstances?_ Herbert wondered to himself. Time seemed to slow as he pursued the issue further. _Is John my friend? Am I his friend?_ It was a peculiar question the doctor found himself asking. He was used to being an acquaintance, a colleague, even an accomplice a time or two, but a friend? That was something he had never been, and something he had never really had before. _Politics makes strange bedfellows, and I suppose an undead apocalypse does too,_ he finally decided, waving off the notion of friendship.

Herbert was brought back to reality when the automobile crashed through the cemetery gates, the red and blue flashers ripped from the hood and smashing onto the ground as they sped ahead. The crash jolted Herbert forward in his seat, nearly colliding with the back of Spider's. A moment later that was another abrupt stop and the doctor was flung back in his seat. "What the hell is wrong with y-"

"Jesus H. Christ!" Burt spat out, cutting the doctor's complaint short.

Herbert's eyes widened at the sight of what was was in front of them. The road was completely blocked by another collection of the undead, this one rivaling the size of the group from the graveyard.

"Back to the warehouse!" Burt announced, seemingly to no one in particular, as he once again spun the steering wheel in his hands and changed direction.

Upon their hasty arrival at the new location, there were two creatures standing in front of the building, ready to pounce as soon as any of the men exited the vehicle. Burt did the only thing he could think of at the time. He rammed the two dead men and sent them, and the front end of the police car, crashing through the shoddily-made concrete block storage garage, stomping on the brake barely in the nick of time to avoid serious injuries to those inside the cruiser.

While a cloud of dust immediately beset over the windshield, obscuring any view from it, Burt tried to open his door, only to find that it wouldn't budge. Spider, coughing at the alarming rate of smoke pouring in from the air vents, pulled on his door handle and kicked the thing open. He jumped out of his seat and began to pull Burt out with him.

"Come on! This way, you stupid honkey!"

As he stumbled out of the car, Herbert caught sight of gushing gasoline catching fire just under the automobile. Something had punctured the gas tank and sparked a fire that was spreading quickly. The spectacle, ironically, lit a figurative fire under his ass and he quickly beat feet to the door, along with the other two men.

The entrance opened as soon as the men were close to it and all three rushed through without a second thought as to who was going to greet them behind the structure.

While Herbert looked at the two new individuals, the medicine bag handle held tight in his fist and ready to swing the thing if he needed to, it appeared as if Spider was already well-acquainted with the suit-wearing man and the girl who vaguely reminded the doctor of one of the all-too-common pop stars that his generation were adoring for no reason. Her poofed, dark hair had vivid streaks of blue running through it while gaudy party jewelry adorned her neck, wrists and ears, and her shirt was even cut in such a way that it hung over her shoulder, revealing the pink strap of her sports bra and a good portion of skin.

Relief poured over Spider at the sight of his two friends again. Casey was a given, but he never knew he would be so happy to see Chuck. Then again, friendship took on a whole new meaning when he watched a couple of his circle die in front of him and the need to hold on to the ones that were left grew almost unbearable.

"Hey, bud," Chuck said through a smile as Spider pulled him in for a hug. He returned the squeeze emphatically, feeling the same relief that not everyone he knew and loved was dead.

Casey gleamed with a smile for the first time since they had been drenched in the burning rain. "Where is everybody?"

A shadow of doubt clouded Spider's face as he went it to hug the girl as well. "I don't know," he answered, rather mundanely.

Herbert gave Spider a strange look as the man lied to his friend. _Is this part of friendship as well? Lying to people? Hell, I've been doing that my whole life._

Though lying to those he considered friends was hard for Spider, he also felt that this semi-happy reunion was not the place to tell them that the only one still alive was Tina. He released his hold on Casey and peered out the window at the burning police car.

"Well, who're they?" Chuck asked.

Without even looking at the men, Spider made their introductions. "The guy dressed like a doctor is a doctor, and the other guy owns this place. Hey, that fuckin' car is totaled, man."

Burt waved off the young man's concern. "It's alright. My car is still out there, and so is Frank's."

The window suddenly bathed the inside of the warehouse in an intense orange glow and there was a loud explosion that vibrated through the walls and shook the window panes. All who witnessed the squad car detonate like the ticking time bomb it was instinctively flinched back, and then everyone crowded the window to see the damage.

Herbert's stomach sank at the sight, and the words he heard next seemed to be the manifestation of his disappointment.

"Not anymore..." Spider sighed, his eyes glued to the two twisted frames of metal that used to be the other cars parked next to the destroyed cruiser. Frank's Volkswagen Rabbit and Burt's Chevrolet Corvette were toast.

* * *

"They left us! Those jerks!" Tina bemoaned as she watched the police car first attempt to pull up to the mortuary door and ultimately back out and drive away completely. Her voice was shrill and hoarse, filled with defeat. The space between where she was and the road ahead quickly filled with walking corpses once again and she would have screamed and fallen to the ground if she thought it would make her feel any better about what just happened.

_One try? One try and that's it?_ she cried in her head, hoping she was wrong and they were coming back for another attempt. The taillights kept moving further away, though.

"They left us!"

"They had to!" Ernie reasoned, sliding the peephole shut so the girl could not negatively feed on the image of their one hope leaving them behind. "Burt'll send help. I know him." Though Ernie believed in his friend, he also knew the circumstances were dire, and even if help was sent it may not arrive before Freddy had dined on a three-course meal of brains.

John could read the look of discouragement and panic on the man's voice and he simply shook his head at the fact that he felt almost exactly the same. He wouldn't have been happy either way, not in the mortuary or in the car with Spider and Burt, but if he had known the whole thing would fall apart in under a minute, he never would've spent three of his last five rounds to ensure the trio made it to the car. Now he only had two shots to subdue the raging, dead madman that was screaming down the halls.

"They left us." Tina could not get over her words, she could not get passed them because the idea they entertained just seemed so outrageous to her. Spider never would have just ran out on her or any of their friends. He had to be coming back... she had to hold on to that hope.

The door leading to the interior of the building suddenly began to bulge inward as rapid, successive blows were delivered to it from the other side. It was Freddy, the screams were proof enough of that, and he was determined and honing in on his prey. A frantic looking Ernie made eye contact with John and pointed to the corner of the room. The cowboy nodded and ran over to the ladder that was stored there. The less noise they made, the less agitated they would make the undead outside their door, and the more time they would have to get to a safer place. Ernie hopped to the placed ladder and ushered Tina up the rungs first, following behind her and allowing John to pull up the rear as they all threw quick glances to the door that would undoubtedly give way at any moment. The screams coming from the other side almost sounded inhuman.

They all made it into the attic just in time, for as John was pulling himself up into the crawlspace, Freddy burst through the door. He quickly reached down to grab the ladder and pull it up with them, but he had miscalculated how close it was and ended up whacking the structure with his forearm, sending it toppling to the floor.

His arm stung, but the knowledge that Freddy, even blinded from the acid, could still work his way up to them stung even more. "Shit!"

"It's alright, it's alright," Ernie spat out quickly. "Close the door, so we can nail it shut."

John was about to follow the mortician's order when he glanced down and watched Freddy first trip over the ladder, then quickly scamper to his feet and pick it up, somehow miraculously placing it right under the attic entrance. John pulled out his revolver and held his breath as he aimed. The mark was incredibly precise this time around and, even with Ernie and Tina screaming at him to hurry and close the door, John drown everything out and focused his sights. He fired one round and hit exactly where he wanted. Freddy screamed in agony as his index and middle fingers were blown off, bits of the exploded digits spraying in every direction. To John's delight, the man fell backwards onto the ground, but to his horror he pulled the ladder down with him, thwarting the gunslinger's plan of obtaining the structure once again. He had to let the cadaver set the ladder up again, get ahold of it and _then_ shoot the beast off. He only had one bullet left, so it needed to count. John focused his attention again, slipping his finger around the trigger, and waited for Freddy to first right himself, and then repeat himself.

Suddenly, a set of hands slapped John on the back and gripped at his clothing, forcefully yanking him back from the opening. The action was more than enough to startle him and, as the butt of his gun connected with the wooden paneling, momentarily halting its movement but not his, the trigger was pulled back and his one last bullet was discharged into the shoulder of the half-corpse still tied to the table from earlier. The thing moaned out in pain, momentarily disturbing its repeated call for brains.

John tumbled backward, his head unexpectedly buried in an old box of forgotten clothes. He sat up, throwing miscellaneous pieces of linen off of him, and looked directly at Ernie, who was sitting on the closed hatch door and hammering a nail into it.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" John stood, half-hunched to avoid knocking his head, and made his way towards the man.

Ernie dropped his hammer, pulled out the Mauser C96 from its holster and aimed it at John. "Don't make me waste a bullet on you, John. I like you, but I'm damned sure not gonna tussle with you in this place. Not when some punk is down there, trying to get up here to eat our brains!"

The gunslinger stopped, trying to determine it is was worth the effort to wrestle the gun from the mortician's shaking hand. He snorted out a breath of contempt when the man finished. "He wouldn't uh been able to get up here if you'd just let me be to do what I was doing. I was gonna grab the ladder and shoot him off again, pull it up here with us so we wouldn't have to do all this nonsense."

"Nails," Ernie said, still staring at John and pointing the pistol sight on him, "and hammer." He placed a handful of nails down on the door, next to the hammer and stared at John for a moment longer. "I'm gonna wedge that plank over there between the hatch and the ceiling. That should buy us more than enough time."

John didn't say a word. He merely grabbed his gun off the floor, placed it in his holster and got down on his knees near the pile of nails. As he hammered the first pin-shaped fastener into place, he could hear Freddy setting up the ladder again, and even talking this time.

"Tina!" he wailed. "Tina, where are you?"

The girl screamed in reply, cowering and covering her ears to try to block out the voice.

Less than a moment later there was a pounding on the door, and the nail John had just placed fell over and rolled away.

"You better hurry the hell up with that plank, mister." he mumbled, clearly still sour about what had transpired.

* * *

Spider picked up one of the metal trays and examined it for a moment, quickly placing it back down in disgust when he realized he had been handling a bedpan. He looked over his shoulder to Herbert, releasing a sigh of disinterest. "So what the hell are we doin' anyway? We should be downstairs."

Herbert stomped his way to the man, appearing rather annoyed. "We're looking for-" He stopped, peering over the supplies on the shelf in front of them. "Ah! Perfect!" He picked up a urine specimen cup and smiled.

His joyous expression struck Spider as eerie, even in the darkness of the room.

"Now, just help me hold down that body; I'll grab what I need and we'll join the others." Herbert continued to smile, grabbing a second cup and making his way back towards the basement door.

Just a few minutes before, Burt had taken matters into his own hands and smashed the head off of the zombie that was occupying his warehouse basement. There were only two phones in the building, and the one in his office had been ripped out of the wall earlier. The other was located in the basement, and Burt was determined to get on the phone with the police, especially after it was announced from a passing helicopter that those within the police blockade that wished to surrender should make their way to the perimeter at once. There was no way the troop were going to attempt to make it from the warehouse to some off the beaten path, middle of nowhere mystery location the loudmouth with the megaphone in the whirlybird had mentioned, especially on foot. Once they had gained access to the basement, Spider mentioned that the dead body on the floor was a 'friend that the Tarman got'. As Herbert stared at the deceased, the odd feeling returned to him, just as it had when he discovered Scuz's body, and then he thought of the police officers that had been ambushed from earlier. Somehow, one of them had crawled out from under the mass of living corpses that had piled on top of him and made a run for the woods, holding his neck, limping badly and drenched from head to toe after being briefly submerged in a large puddle of rainwater. He had seen that same officer sometime later, the shower-cap covering his police hat nearly as unmistakable as the caterpillar mustache across his face... only this time he was one of the walking dead, hungering for Herbert's brains as they made a dash for his abandoned police vehicle (ironically, the only thought occupying the doctor's head at the time was how the officer managed to keep his hat in all the commotion). He thought about the medical cadaver, split dogs and even the damn butterflies that had to be incinerated and how each and every one of those things did not suffer from something that Scuz, Suicide or the EMTs suffered. He quickly turned to Spider, practically begging the young man to accompany him back upstairs to retrieve something. Spider adamantly protested at first, not having any intentions of going back to where the decapitated zombie now resided unless there was a guarantee of help. Herbert was finally able to persuade him by stating that he was going to restrain the corpse upstairs for good, he just needed a helping set of hands.

A crash emanated to the duo from the back of the large room. Herbert jumped slightly, momentarily juggling one of the cups after it flew out of his hand.

"That fucker's up again!" Spider yelled, raising his sledgehammer and watching the headless body of the 'Tarman' creature wobble around, bumping into shelves and equipment with every discombobulated turn. The men cautiously approached the body, making sure to stay out of the reach of its flailing limbs.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Hit it!" the doctor ordered.

Spider stared at him sternly for a moment before tightening his grip on the weapon and waiting for the right opening. It came a second later as the figure turned its back to the young man; he swung, hard, and connected directly with its spine. There was an unsettling 'snap' sound, followed by that of a splatter as the cadaver fell to the floor in a heap. The black goop covering its bones smeared across the concrete floor and Herbert, covering his hands with a second set of latex gloves, knelt down and began to scoop the gunk into one of the empty urinal cups.

A look of shock and disgust overcame Spider. "What the fuck you doin'? You don't even know what that shit is!"

"It's flesh," Herbert replied nonchalantly, filling the container almost two-thirds full before screwing the cap back on.

"It's... what?!"

"Flesh," the doctor nodded, looking up at the younger man. "At first, I wasn't sure what it was, but a closer examination after Burt had knocked his head off and it stuck out like a sore thumb. You can still make out a good majority of non-putrefied organs if you look close enough... and know what you're looking at, of course."

"Why the fuck does it look like that, then?"

Herbert shrugged at this question, not having a surefire answer, but a fairly reasonable speculation. "A chemical reaction, I would imagine. The body was preserved inside of the canister, but that wouldn't stop it from continuing to deteriorate like a normal dead body. It was literally mummified in that barrel, and when the leak sprung and air was introduced to it, it should have collapsed into dust, but somehow it began to liquefy, like the Trioxin caused it to react altogether differently."

Spider began to ask another question when the body suddenly convulsed and the upper portion once again started to shift around, arms sliding across the floor and hands reaching for air. Both men moved back, Herbert falling on his back from his squatted position and crawling away with uncanny speed.

"You said we were gonna stop it!" Spider yelled. "How the hell we gonna do that?! Only way to kill 'em is to burn 'em!"

Herbert stood and dusted himself off, placing the filled cup in his medicine bag. "I never said we were going to _kill_ it... just stop it from getting to us." He pointed to the tall, barren shelving unit and motioned for Spider to follow him to it. "Just help me push it over on the thing," he grunted, expelling all of his minuscule force into toppling the metal structure.

Spider pushed on the other side, exerting far less force yet having a much greater affect, and the two watched the rack fall onto the half-liquefied body and pin it in place.

"Your friend downstairs was actually lucky, and Scum as well," Herbert blurted, winded from his efforts yet pleased with the results.

"It was 'Scuz', asshole!" Spider yelled, knuckles whitening as his grip on the sledgehammer handle increased tenfold. "And you better watch what the fuck you sayin'! They're dead, alright?! There ain't nothing lucky about that!"

Herbert bent over slightly and placed his hands on his knees, trying to overcome his sudden dizzy spell. "They're lucky because they're not- they're not going to come back like this thing, or those things outside... or Frank and Freddy."

"Yeah and how the fuck you know that, poindexter?"

"Because," he replied and smiled, happy to share his theory with someone, "they had a traumatic brain injury that lead to their death."

Confusion riddled Spider's face and it wasn't longer than a moment before Herbert further explained himself.

"Everyone who had their skull gnawed into and brains served up on a silver platter stayed dead, but those who were already dead, or died sometime after being exposed to that chemical, came back. Think about it. Frank, Freddy, that police officer; they were all exposed and they all came back. Scuz, your other friend downstairs, the police officer's partner? All died from brain trauma, none came back."

Spider stared at the doctor for a moment, trying to comprehend what he had been told, and look for a flaw in the logic as well. As Herbert straightened his posture, the punk thought of something else entirely.

"Oh shit, man! We all got drenched in that rain! You and John, too! Does that mean we're gonna die? Are- are we gonna turn out like Freddy?"

There was a distinct tone of panic in the young man's voice, but again Herbert replied in a calm manner, already having thought of such a scenario and reasoning out the probability of it.

The doctor shook his head. "No, not likely."

Even though he was being helpful in alleviating his concerns, Spider couldn't help but become irritated with the smug, smart elitism that Herbert displayed with each response.

"From what they told me, both Frank and Freddy passed out when the canister leaked and they felt deathly ill-" He paused, as it for dramatic effect, and threw a quick glance to Spider. "...after they woke up. While they probably died while they were unconscious on the basement floor, you also have to remember that they had a very high, concentrated dose of that chemical. It hit them right in the face. By comparison, we all had very minute doses, diluted by the rain, and our skin likely absorbed very little of it."

Spider rolled his eyes at the length to which the man could talk. _Come on, man. I just asked a simple damn question! I'll be dead in my grave by the time you answ-_

"Aw, fuck!" Spider raised a hand to his forehead in frustration. It felt like the more he knew, the more he thought of, and the more he thought of, the more he needed new answers. It was turning into a mundane cycle that he was not too find of. "What about those things that came outta the ground-"

"In the cemetery?" Herbert finished for him, already displaying that he had given that thought as well. "It all has to do with the brain, Spider, it really does. Whatever the chemical does to revive the dead, it does so by basically hijacking the brain and hot-wiring itself through the nervous system after that, basically infecting every part of the body after it has reactivated the master control- the brain. Our gray matter is still alive and functioning, actively resisting any impulse the Trioxin may have. But, what may happen after we pass away? Well... there's only one way to test that out."

The light pouring in from the open basement door immersed both men, and the smile Herbert wore simply gleamed. In the span of just a few minutes, the doctor had displayed delighted expressions that had given his younger confidant the willies both times he had caught sight of them.

Spider was at a loss. Half of what Herbert had said simply flew over his head, and the other half just didn't make a whole lot of sense to him. The Tarman body shifted under the metal shelving again and, again, both men jumped, breaking them out of the awkwardness that Herbert's last words had clouded the room with.

"Look, fuck this. Let's get back downstairs," Spider remarked. "Maybe they got some help on the phone or something."

As the duo descended the steps to the basement, a counter point to Herbert's brain theory finally struck Spider.

"The dogs! What about the split dogs?" he asked, his tone becoming somewhat infected with the doctor's morbid enthusiasm and delivering the question in a far more lively timbre than he regularly would have. "They were cut in two, man, brain and all. How the hell could they come back if what you said is true."

The doctor smirked, shaking his head and taking the last few stairs with an odd pep to his step. "Were you listening to anything I said? Death via brain injury! Those dogs were either killed long before they were cut in half or they passed of natural causes before becoming specimens. Either way, their brains were not damaged before they died, and I believe that is the link between death and reanimation with this goldmine we have in our hands!"

"Goldmine?" Spider stopped and scrunched up his face, feeling more lost than ever. "What the fuck you goin' on about a 'goldmine' for? You see what this shit does."

"Oh yes. Yes, I have."

Another voice interrupted the two, breaking their communication before Herbert could do anything that Spider was sure would give him the heebie-jeebies for a third time.

"Where the hell have you guys been?" Casey asked, her voice slightly squeaking in the process.

"Ol' weird-ass doctor Frankenstein here had me help him upstairs, makin' sure that thing's body wouldn't stop us from gettin' outta here if we need to. Any luck with the cops?"

Casey's slight grin dropped at the mention of the police, and Chuck piped up to answer for her.

"They got the cops, Spider; those things got the cops and they're breaking out of the barricade."

Spider released a sigh of despair, shaking his head and looking to the floor.

"But we got through to the army or something. Called the number stenciled on the side of the tank. Burt talked to a Captain and a Colonel."

Herbert scoffed, quite audibly. "The army? Are you insane?"

"Hey!" Burt shouted, phone still held lazily in his hand as he waited to be transferred to yet another department. "They said they've been waiting for this to happen and they have some sort of contingency plan to deal with it."

"What the hell is this 'plan'?" Spider remarked, clearly just as skeptical and distrusting of the armed forces as Herbert.

"If you think there just going to come in here and save us you're wrong," Herbert added. "Dead wrong. If anything they'll probably kill us. Come in with their machine guns and riddle us with holes. Or, better yet, they could just drop a bomb on us. Yeah. Knock out a few city blocks and boom... suddenly no more problem." The doctor had worked himself up in his little spiel. By the time he finished he was breathing heavily and small beads of sweat were forming on his head.

"Would you shut up, man? You're freaking everyone out." While Spider agreed that the army was not the greatest hope, he could see how Herbert's words were scaring his friends, Casey in particular.

Before Herbert could reply, his medicine bag began to emit a white, pulsing glow. The mask inside had activated, once again preparing to turn Herbert's world upside down and inside out.

"What the fuck?!" Spider shouted, taking a step back from the doctor.

"Holy shit!" Casey screamed. "What's tha-"

But Herbert couldn't hear her anymore... he couldn't see her anymore. The light had taken him.

* * *

"Tina, it was wrong of you to lock me up," Freddy's voice seeped through the floorboards, his tone sounding almost rational. "I had to hurt myself to get out. But I forgive you, darling."

Tina squeaked out sobs between her flow of tears at the words, not at all being able to help it. She was horribly scared for her life and still miserably heartbroken at the loss of her boyfriend, and his return as something else.

"And I know you're here, because I can smell your braaaaains!" He began smashing at the hatchway again.

"Oh God!" Tina screamed in a state halfway between delirium and hysteria, barely able to contain a gag at the mere thought of what Freddy had said. "Go away!"

His pounding intensified, and some of the boards in the covering began to crack under the continued pressure. There was a sickening crunch sound a moment later. Whatever it was, it sounded wet.

"See?" Freddy moaned through the unsettling silence. "And now you've made me hurt myself again! You made me break my hand completely off this time, Tiiiiiina! But I don't care, darling, because I love you."

John heard the girl cry out in a sorrowful pain behind him and his heart sank for her.

"And you've got to let meeee eeeeat your braaaaains!"

The pounding commenced again, the two-by-four plank now bowing in the middle from the continued abuse. John sat near the opening, propped up on his knees, Bowie knife drawn and ready to stab, repeatedly. He had almost bit the dust at the hands of this punk once before, he wasn't going down without an honest to goodness fight this time. Unexpectedly, a white light began to pulse from the gunslinger's very own core, starting at his stomach and growing rapidly.

_What? No!_ he thought, frantic. _Not the time for this bullshit!_

John turned his head back, trying to read the situation behind him before it was too late. In many respects, he wished he never had. Both Ernie and Tina were frozen, not just in fear of the undead Freddy below them, but John could clearly see that they could see he was literally glowing. Unfortunately, he also saw that Ernie had an exit plan for Tina; the barrel of the Mauser C96 held less than an inch away from her temple.

It was Ernie's last-ditch effort at making sure she went out peacefully if the monster downstairs broke the barricade.

"Nooooooooooooo!" John screamed as he reached out for the two, dread and anguish filling every part of his being. He couldn't let the girl go out like that, not when she had been his beacon in these last few hours... not after she had saved his life in the chapel. Her flame was too strong to be put out by anything other than a gale... and a bullet would be a disgrace.

Before he could make contact, however, John's world became blanketed in white.

* * *

The light faded away and Herbert examined his new surroundings, still surprised that he had yet again been transported somehow. He was in an alley of some sort. A faded brick wall lined one side of him and what appeared to be the back entrance of a story or restaurant was behind him. A quick glance to his right revealed John, sitting on his knees with his head bowed and hands draped across his knees... one of them still clutching his Bowie knife.

"Goddammit!" the cowboy roared. "I coulda saved her. Hell, I coulda saved him. He didn't have to-"

A familiar voice interrupted the man, lacing the words it spoke with an equally familiar vulgarity.

"What the fuck just happened? Where are we?"

Both men turned to look behind them, varied expressions of shock spread across their mugs.

Spider didn't appear scared as much as dazed to the men. He was slowly looking all around, drinking the environment in, and nervously wringing his hands around the sledgehammer's handle as he held the weapon tight to his chest. The fact that he was outside was making him freeze up more than anything. They shouldn't be out... those things were outside. When he made eye contact with the men again, he seemed to look passed them and his eyes widened nearly to the point of bugging out of his head. He loosened his vice-grip on the sledgehammer to point, rather shakily, at something far beyond where they were. "Guys, what the fuck is that?!"

John and Herbert turned again, to see what their newest addition was pointing at and what met their vision put them in the same state of mind as Spider.

A man was coming down the alley towards them, and from the looks of it, he had been dead for a long time. His skin was a light, putrid brown color, marred with holes from both decomposition and various insect feasts. His lips, nose and eyes were all gone, but that didn't stop his empty sockets from zeroing in on the men, nor his mouth from twisting upward into a pseudo smile that shown his rotten teeth like they were prized gems.

With fire ax in hand, the creature lurched forward, closing the gap with each substantial step and leaving the men with little time to decide if they would go in fighting or out in pieces...

* * *

_**Author's note:** So we have finally moved on from the Return of the Living dead universe! Honestly, I never expected to spend six chapters there, but it was just so fun and involving that I couldn't help it. I highly doubt and other movie/game world will last as long as that; there is just too many places I want to cover to pull that off again. Now, I was just going to leave you all with that teaser for the next chapter and let those who could work it out work it out. However, since there was a request for me to reveal the next universe the trio will be visiting, I will honor that. It may be a month or so before the next chapter, but then we will be able to see how the gang fares in Night of the Creeps!_


	12. Creepy-crawlies

**Chapter 11 – Creepy-crawlies (****_Night of the Creeps_****)**

* * *

John stepped forward without a word, holding out his gun and aiming the sights directly at the middle of the approaching creature's forehead.

There was a hollow 'click' sound as he pulled the trigger of his emptied revolver.

"Shit!" he yelled in surprise, completely having forgotten that he had spent the last of his ammunition trying to down a rampaging Freddy back at the funeral home.

Spider grabbed his coat, pulling him back a little. "I got this, man, I got this."

He had just faced an endless army of the undead and still came out kickin'; Spider was fairly confident that he could bash in the head of one walking stiff and then they could all figure out what the hell was going on.

The rotted corpse was almost on them now, forcing John and Herbert to back themselves into the corner where the faded-brick building was literally cemented to the white-painted cinder block wall of an adjacent shop. In an almost paternal fashion, Spider waved his hand behind him, as if warning the already trapped duo to stay back. As he did so, the walking cadaver swung the fire ax in its tight grasp and connected with Spider's sledgehammer, hitting the weapon at the neck of the handle and chopping the hammer off entirely. Spider fumbled forward slightly, the force of the fire ax first catching the sledgehammer's wooden stock had pulled him towards the thing before the blade of the ax tore through the wood entirely. Spider's eyes grew wide in disbelief as he watched the head of the sledgehammer fall to the ground and collide with the concrete with a dull thud. The decayed body lifted the ax again and brought it down with alarming speed. It was as if time slowed for the young punk and he could see the blade the the ax falling closer and closer to his face; its menacing blade catching back alley lights and throwing glints of illumination every which was as the bloodied weapon continued to travel.

_I'm dead. One fuckin' try at being a hero and now I'm fuckin' dead!_ he thought, frantically.

The very edge of the ax barely caught his right cheek, leaving a one-inch long cut that immediately began to bleed, as the man was violently pulled back to safety by John. If his timing had been a second later, Spider would've had the ax buried in his head.

"Fuck!" Spider shrieked in both fear and exhilaration, a polar opposite mix he never knew anyone could experience until that very moment. He rose a hand to his face to check the damage and was slightly relieved that that amount of blood shown on his palm was minimal and not at all indicating a gusher of a wound. His hands were instantly shaking, but he looked at the long wooden handle still in his grip; the neck of the stock splintered and broken where the head of the sledgehammer used to be.

As the creature took another sluggish step forward, appearing to prepare itself for yet another ax attack, Spider threw the useless stock at the approaching corpse, hitting it in the chest and causing the thing to fall back and almost over onto its back.

All three men stood in a huddled silence as a familiar structure turned the corner at the far end of the alley. If the flashing red and blue lights weren't sufficient to cue them in on what it was, the growing wail of the siren was more than enough to. For the second time in recent memory, Spider was actually glad to see the fast-approaching authority figures. They weren't going to be outnumbered this time, and they at least had guns to take this thing out.

The car came to a screeching, jolting halt and the two officers within scurried out with their weapons drawn. Not a word was said; no 'stop!', 'hands up!' or any other expected demand, and other troopers began to flood the small alley from all directions.

Finally, an older man in a tan trench coat yelled out the stereotypical cop catchphrase, 'Freeze!', as he quickly pulled on the fore-end of his Remington 870 shotgun and cocked it. Even more than the 'click-clack' of the gun, his booming order drew attention as it bounced off the concrete walls and echoed, causing the corpse to completely stall in its movement. Tension grew around Spider, John and Herbert as they all watched different things to try to decide what to do. They were between a rock, a hard place... and maybe an even harder one. They couldn't retreat any further thanks to the walls at their backs, and they couldn't go forward because of the ax-wielding thing in front of them, but if they stayed exactly where they were, they may be in the cross-hairs of the five officers who were all aiming their weapons at the undead maniac.

As the other two were focusing their attention elsewhere, John on the walking corpse that had stopped in front of them and Spider was very cautiously shifting his sights between the four uniformed police officers that were all aiming their handguns in his general direction, Herbert followed the slow moving cop in the trench coat as he neared his four comrades. He then said something that caught the doctor's attention fully. It was only just above a whisper, but Herbert still hear him clearly.

"I already killed you. You son of a bitch, I already killed you."

It was obvious that the man was referring to the walking, dead thing with the ax, as it seemed that Herbert and his crew were all but invisible to the lawmen. And, perhaps, the corpse knew this as well, because it suddenly turned around to face the police officers, its weapon still held firmly in its hands.

Spider's eyes widened as his street-smart intuition kicked in. He had seen a few of his close, albeit stupid, friends do something similar to cops back in California, just before he moved to Louisville, and he knew what the outcome would be.

"Move!" he shouted, reaching over to push John to the right and pulling Herbert as far left as he could in a split-second. The four uniformed officers all opened fire on the fixed cadaver and blew multiple holes into its chest and abdomen. Each and every shot went right though the thing, penetrating into the walls behind it as their speed barely slowed. The holes left in the stiff were illuminated by the bright headlights of the cruiser parked about twenty feet in front of it, and the sight would have been grotesquely comical if not for the fact that the situation itself was overwhelmingly horrifying. Had Spider held out for a moment longer, all of them might have been dead, but his quick actions saved them from the barrage of oncoming slugs.

Still the creature stood, leaving all five of the law officers in disbelief of what they were witnessing. The man with the shotgun made a face that read he had just seen a ghost, causing him to become almost as white as the grey hair that was slowly consuming his natural color with age. He managed to regain his composure fairly quickly, dropping the look and tugging the shotgun up so the sight was at eye-level for him. Snugging the butt of the gun firmly against his shoulder, the man took a moment to weld his cheek to the stock and perfect his aim before he pulled back on the trigger. The action looked effortless and well-practiced for the gun-weilder.

The corpse's head exploded within an instant, throwing chunks of leathery flesh, bone fragments and decayed brain matter everywhere. The shattered cranium also released something else from within it. Something much more terrifying than the bits of bone and brain that had splattered all over Herbert and Spider.

Things that looked like overgrown slugs flowed out of the open cavity atop the corpse's neck and showered down across the concrete below, scurrying away into the darkness of the night with alarming speed almost as soon as they hit the ground. Everyone watched, unsure of what to do or what the things were, and it took the hollow 'thump' of the lifeless, headless body to reel everyone back into the now.

"That... was some bullshit," Spider lamented in a low voice as he wiped bits and pieces of organic matter from his shirt and bare arms.

"That was interesting," Herbert countered, removing his eyeglasses to once again clean them.

"You know ya'll almost fuckin' killed us too, right?! Motha-fuckas..." Spider defiantly yelled in protest, showing his undeniable disdain for authority figures instead of any kind of appreciation for being saved.

The four uniformed officers still had their guns drawn and aimed, but instead of training their sights at the corpse, they were now locked on the three men who were pinned against the walls.

"What the hell are you doin'?" John questioned, his voice a mixture of genuine curiosity and hinted anger. "You all already spent your bullets. I counted. Each of you put six rounds into that thing before it keeled over." John Marston may not have been a rocket scientist or even had the ability to make it passed first grade math, but his time as an outlaw on the run from the law taught him that every shot mattered, and you needed to count not just your own bullets, but those of your enemies as well. While he wasn't sure if the men (and single woman) in front of him were actually his enemy, counting their fired bullets was something he did simply by force of habit.

"We're not all out," the grey-haired man in the tan trench-coat announced, cocking his shotgun again. "Got one in the chamber and three more in the mag. Now..." He slowly raised the shotgun to a firing position again and made his way towards the men. "You mind telling me just what the hell you were doing back here with that thing?"


	13. Cornered

_**Author's Note:** Slight change-up to one of the officers in this chapter from what was presented in the movie. They are a trivial character anyway and I wanted to make it so I could have a bit of fun with them and one of our heroes. I hope you enjoy the slight deviation (well, there's a lot of deviation all throughout, but you get my point)._

**Chapter 12 – Cornered**

* * *

All three men raised their arms up in surrender as the older police officer advanced with his loaded weapon.

"Whoa, whoa, partner. No need to be hostile," John hastily spat out, trying not to sound as unnerved by all of this as he actually was.

Spider spoke up as well, a look of defiance spread across his face as he talked; his disdain for authority figures was making a record-breaking comeback. "And we weren't with that thing at all. Damn corpse was tryin' to kill us before you guys showed up."

Herbert simply kept his mouth shut and shifted slightly so he was more behind Spider than next to him. He doubted the young man would provide much cover from the explosion that would shoot out of the barrel in front of them, but it was better than nothing.

"Christ," the officer breathed in a quiet tone, sounding irritated and even going as far as rolling his eyes slightly. His shoulders relaxed and he lowered his shotgun to a less hostile position. "It'd be just my luck to run into Butch, Buckwheat and Froggy tonight," he said, peering at John, Spider and Herbert individually as he read off each appointed nickname.

"No," John said, sounding completely earnest as he shook his head, "this here's Spider and Dr. West, not Buckwheat and Froggy, and I'm no Butch Cassidy, believe me. I think you might have us confused with some other group uh people, mister."

"Oh good," the officer replied with a slight chuckle. "Bright as a sack of hammers, this one. Spanky and Alfalfa were already taken by a couple other clowns, but I might have been a little quick to hand out the prized names."

"He didn't mean Butch Cassidy, John," Spider informed his friend, maintaining eye contact with the older man, "and we sure as shit ain't the Little Rascals, man. And Buckwheat? Really? What kinda racist shit is that? If you really needa go with a black character, least you coulda done was call me Stymie."

"Detective Cameron, sir, what do you want us to do with them? I mean, we-" another officer interrupted from behind the detective, appearing slightly apprehensive about his approach. Before he could even finish, the higher ranking detective raised a hand to silence him and then spoke to the man without even looking back at him.

"What I want you to do, rookie, is call this in and get this shit cleaned up before midnight while I continue to talk with our new friends here." His voice was stern and direct, but not overtly raised. Still, his words carried a weight about them that demanded both attention and compliance. Detective Cameron surveyed Spider up and down as he spoke, and the questioning police officer scampered away as soon as his orders were barked to him. "And you," he locked eyes with the young man who had been at odds with him since the second he opened his mouth, "you couldn't even be a poor man's Stymie dressed like that, so you get to stay a Buckwheat."

John looked genuinely confused and struggling to understand the strange back and forth that Spider and the detective were having, and his face twisted into a canvas of bewilderment as he fought to even think of something to say.

Cameron looked at the other two as well, and a slight look of amusement momentarily graced his face. "Don't like the nicknames or something, boys?"

No one replied. John and Herbert shared puzzled looks with one another while Spider merely stared at the detective with a look that would have been lethal if it could kill.

"Fine, what are you then?" Cameron conceded. "The three Musketeers? Caballeros? Stooges? Come on, help me out here. I mean, it's almost October, but still... a little early for Halloween, isn't it fellas?"

"Look, mister," Spider began trying his best to ignore the detective's snide (and fairly untimely) sense of humor and actually achieve something, "we don't know where we're at or how we even got here! Last thing I remember we were stuck in some warehouse, on the phone with the army and then some white light blasted outta nowhere and now we're here! We gotta find that warehouse, man! We gotta save our friends. They're stuck there and there a ton of zombies like the one you just took care of trying to eat their brains!"

John and Herbert both grimaced at Spider's words, as they both knew that they were no longer where they were before. The fact that the detective had even mentioned that they weren't even in the same month didn't seem to seep into the young man's mind. The kind of talk their third companion had just spouted out would sound insane to any reasonable person, and would garner the appropriate look of suspicion to accompany it... much like the look Detective Cameron was giving the trio now.

"Drugs..." Cameron breathed as if it was the answer he had been looking for for a while now. "You all came back here do some drugs, heroin or something, and you got cornered by that thing, didn't you?"

"Drugs?!" Spider yelled, appalled at the accusation. "Nobody's doin' any drugs back here, man! We got people who need us!"

"Oh, is that so? Well, just let me see what's in the bag that Froggy is holding there any maybe we'll try to go find your friends."

Herbert clutched his medical bag close to his chest, overlapping his arms to lock his treasured possessions tight to his body. He couldn't just give up the bag. His life's research was in there, the last of his serums were in there, the key to discovering how the 2-4-5 Trioxin worked was in there. Most importantly, the Jade Veil was in there, and without it Herbert had now idea how he would get home. "No!"

"It wasn't a request," the detective said coldly and reached towards the doctor.

John stepped forward, fully intent on stopping the police officer, but before he took more than one step, the barrel of Cameron's twelve-gauge was pushed snug up against his abdomen. The steel was still hot against his flesh; the heat pushing through the thin barrier of his clothing in mere moments. The sensation was more than enough to make John realize the man meant business.

"The bag! Now, Froggy!"

Herbert again began to protest, merely shaking his head this time, but Cameron reached forward and yanked the medical bag from his grip with little effort.

"Hands up! All three of ya!" the female police officer shouted. She wasn't even looking at the direction of the trio when she shouted her demand, but instead loading the last round into the cylinder and quickly locking it into place with the palm of her hand before wrapping it over her other and cocking the hammer.

Spider and Herbert threw their hands up immediately, but John remained motionless. While he was willing to comply with the demand made of him, he was not going to make any quick moves while the barrel of a shotgun was still planted firmly in his stomach.

The detective lowered his weapon and motioned with it, signaling John to step back and comply, which he did.

"Appreciate the backup, Officer Palmer, but maybe next time you can start shouting orders _after_ you have your revolver loaded and ready to fire. It's a little more intimidating that way."

The officer didn't reply, but kept her stare trained on the three men as the all wore a look of concern that centered on the medicine bag.

"By the way, think you can do us all a favor and relieve the cowboy of his six-shooter there? It's in a holster around his belt. Caught a glimpse of it when he put his arms up."

Very warily, the female officer approached John, reaching into his coat just slightly while keeping her service pistol aimed at his chest. She pulled out the cattleman revolver a moment later, holding it with her thumb and forefinger as if the thing was covered in diseases. Once she made her way closer, Spider got his first real good look at her. She was young, much younger than he expected any female officer to be, and it appeared as if she was perhaps biracial to him. Her light-brown skin-tone could have been a variety of different ethnicities or races, but her tightly curled black locks and full-lips made him believe there was some black in her. Even in all this chaos, he liked what he saw... but Spider was a man whose life was usually dictated by his crotch.

"Ah, Jesus!" Cameron sighed loudly. "Hold the damn thing properly before you drop it and blow a hole in your foot!"

Reluctantly, the officer grasped the handle with more force, backing up a few steps until she was met by one of her fellow policemen who had an open plastic evidence bag just waiting for the gun to be dropped in it.

"So, let's see what goodies we've got here," Cameron said in his usual charismatic tone (the kind the rest of the police force usually compared to that of a roadkill animal: flat and dead).

"Careful!" John suddenly yelled out, garnering the half-concerned, half-agitated looking face of Detective Cameron. "There's a , uh... mask in there..."

The doctor caught on to what his associate was implying almost immediately... or rather, what he was trying to avoid. "It has sharp edges!" Herbert quickly added. "Wouldn't want you to cut yourself." He accompanied his words with a smile, but the gesture looked forced and downright creepy on the man.

"Uh huh," Detective Cameron uttered with an air of superiority about him, already having sat the bag down and opening it on bended knee. "You know, I can smell bad intentions from a mile away," he announced in a ho hum manner, "and this bag reeks of it." After taking a peek at the contents in the bag, he released a small laugh and his mood took a sudden turn towards the sardonic, deadpan state that he was almost always comfortably in. "I dunno, maybe it's the black tar heroin in the piss cup..." He held up the specimen cup with the blackened, rotten flesh of the undead from the 2-4-5 Trioxin canister and examined it for a moment before placing it on the ground and reaching into the bag again. "Or maybe it's the needles..." he continued on, pulling out a handful of syringes and dropping them onto the asphalt next to the urine container. "Maybe it's even... these, um," He held up two clear, rectangular bottles with glowing green liquid in them, one visibly more vibrant than the other. He looked between the containers for a minute before focusing his expectant gaze at Herbert. "Mind telling me just what the hell these are, Froggy? I've been on the force for years, and I never seen shit like this before."

The doctor was about to reply... or stumble his way through an answer at the very least, as he couldn't think of any way of explaining what his reagent was without sounding like a nutcase (the only logical answer that popped into his mind was to say the concoction was liquid neon), when Spider stopped him.

"Don't bother answerin'," the punk suggested scornfully, hands still raised far above his head. "He ain't gonna believe shit you say anyway, unless it's what he _wants_ to hear."

Detective Cameron looked at the men for another moment, his face expressionless, but his eyes were almost demanding answers. He finally let out a sigh and shook his head. "Alright, that's fine. We're gonna test all this anyway so we will find out what it is one way or another." He began digging in the bag again as another officer began to document the items removed.

There were various other small pieces of medical equipment, including a box of band-aids, and a collection of hand-written annotations with a black notebook nestled into the middle of them. With every item removed, the detective would quickly peer back up at the three detained men just to see if he could read anything on their faces, and he honed in on the look of shock on Herbert's face when the papers were pulled out.

"So what are these?" Detective Cameron asked, boring a hole directly into the doctor with his hard gaze. "Notes on how to make your own drugs? A nice, little client list?"

Spider looked over at Herbert, who was clearly about to babble something to the officer. "Don't say a word, man. Not a gotdamn word! That could be a cure for cancer and he wouldn't give a shit."

The doctor heeded the advice of the youth, but beads of sweat were forming on his forehead at just the thought of his notes disappearing forever.

Sighing and pulling a cigarette from the inner-pocket of his jacket, the detective lit it and looked back at the notes for a moment. "Looks like I have a little late night reading to do then. Here's hoping it isn't too boring and I end up falling asleep with this cigarette in my hand, burnin' them all up to a bitty pile of ash."

The imagery created at the officer's words flared in Herbert's mind. There wasn't a fear of losing his master formula, the equation for creating that was cemented in his mind and nothing was going to take it away... but what of his tested and untested alterations? He certainly couldn't remember all of them, not to mention the records of re-animation attempts, both failed and successful. All of it would just go up in smoke... every bit of information he had was within those pages just lost. The anxiety that built up within him poured out before he could contain himself. "No!" he blurted out in a panic.

"Ahhh," the detective breathed as he stood up and stared at the three. As he slowly advanced toward them, holding the bundle of rubber-banded papers and taping them against the palm of his other hand, he continued, "So, this is what get's your goat, huh Froggy? A little book full of scribbles? Must be pretty important."

"More than you can imagine," Herbert replied, refusing to say anything else and scrunching his face into the best show of defiance he could muster.

"Look, it's getting late and I'm tired of messing around here, boys. I'm already gonna have a mountain of paperwork with this mess, so why don't you all make it just a little easier on me and show me some ID, huh?"

"Ain't got none," Spider replied immediately without hesitation. "Left it in my other tux."

The detective smiled, the lit cigarette between his lips lifting slightly with the activity. "Cute, kid. Real cute. Let me guess: the same goes for you, Froggy?"

Herbert stayed silent, continuing his hard, cold stare at the man.

"And, uh, how about you Butch?"

John simply shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "What the hell is an 'ID', mister?"

The cowboy's response caused Herbert to grin, and he couldn't help but respond in an attempt to further irritate the detective. "You'll have to excuse John. From what he tells me, he's an honest-to-goodness gunslinger from 1911 and, if my memories from history classes serve me correctly, those kinds of things weren't exactly popular back then."

Detective Cameron stood silent for a moment, soaking in the smug look of satisfaction that Herbert was now wearing. "You guys all seem like a buncha whackjobs to me. Wackjobs on drugs. Palmer, Teague, take Butch and Buckwheat here and move 'em to the station. Froggy's coming with me. Maybe I'll be able to get a little more out of him without the influence of his friends to keep him quiet."

"Don't say anything, Herbert, and don't put up any kind of fight 'less you want a knock on your damn head from one of these pigs," Spider protested as he was pulled to the side by officer Palmer, a woman who was at least six inches shorter than her detainee. "Present company excluded, baby," he added when he realized who was going to be cuffing him.

"You better believe I'll give you a knock if you call me 'baby' again," Officer Palmer said from behind, tightening one of the cuffs as she did so.

Cameron grabbed Herbert by the shoulder, pulling him forward and forcefully turning him around, pulling his arms behind him and applying a pair of handcuffs to his wrist. As the doctor was being restrained, he watched the same treatment befall his traveling companions.

"Man, this is some bullshit," Spider bemoaned, Palmer applying the last cuff from behind the young man. "What the hell you even arrestin' us for anyway? You gotta have a reason, ya know?"

"We do," Cameron stated, almost seeming to spit the words out in contempt, his cigarette held tight between his teeth. "It's called 'probable cause,' and you may want to look it up sometime. That shit in the bag? Probable cause. You creeps hanging out back here with a corpse? Probable cause. Obstruction? You can bet your ass that's probable cause."

Spider narrowed his eyes towards the assertive officer while John merely released a sigh and shook his head.

"Detective Cameron, sir, there's still a weird mask in this bag. You want me to bag it up for evidence?" another officer called out, kneeling near Herbert's medicine bag.

Cameron shook his head and irritably blew out a puff of smoke, the last tendrils lazily drifting up his lip and through his thick mustache. "Not yet, Officer Dante, but thanks. I want to see what my friend here can tell me about these damn notes and that mask they were all so worried about... as well as all the other shit in that bag. Here, put this in there would ya?" He threw the collection of papers to the officer and pulled Herbert's other arm back with his now-free hand, fully restraining the man. "As a matter of fact- everyone load a different guy in your car. Maybe they'll talk cause they don't know if the others will rat 'em out."

As the officers nodded in agreement, Spider yelled out one more obscenity before Cameron grinned again.

"Alright, load 'em up and meet at the station," the detective ordered, pulling Herbert along by the bend in his elbow. He took the medicine bag from Officer Schaefer as he passed by him, warning Herbert that they had a bit of a stroll ahead of them to make it back to his car.

* * *

_**Author's note:** Yeah, I know: long wait. :P I do want to thank all of my readers for their never-ending patience. I am already onto the next chapter, but I wanted to pick your brain on something: what are your thoughts of my portrayal of our favorite depressed, suicidal, one-line-spittin' Detective Cameron? Good? Bad? Way off the mark? I know he is fairly one-sided here, but I plan on going into his backstory (and that of the ax-murderer) in the next chapter. Also, I have taken the time to go back through all previous chapters and spruce them up in some manner (correcting misspellings, fixing grammar/punctuation, adding bits of detail and dialogue here and there). Nothing plot-changing, but it feels better to me somehow now._


	14. The long and short of Ivan Wroth

**Chapter 13 – The long and short of Ivan Wroth**

* * *

The back of Detective Cameron's 1950 Ford Custom Fordor Sedan was slightly cluttered with just about everything: papers, discarded food containers, empty packs of smokes, and now Herbert West.

The drive was quiet, with Cameron not uttering another word to the doctor from the time they left the crime scene, and it was the quiet that was disturbing Herbert the most. The man had questions, that was his reason for isolating him, and yet he was not asking anything, not saying anything... and it was completely throwing the good doctor.

"Where are we going?" Herbert finally inquired, breaking the eerie silence.

There was more calm from the detective, but he eventually cleared his throat and answered, "Crestridge Police Department, genius."

He didn't turn around, he didn't shoot him any kind of glance in the rear-view mirror... he just answered, cold and flat. Only more silence followed after the detective's answer. Herbert was no good with small talk. Honestly, he was no good with talk in general, usually waiting on other people to take the lead and just following along if he needed to. This was the first time he could recall that he needed info but had no idea how to get it without giving the officer what he wanted.

"Crestridge? We're in Crestridge? Um, where is that?"

No answer.

Frustrated, Herbert dug through his mind in desperation, seeking out any nugget of conversation he could. On the spur of the moment, he remembered the incident that occurred in the back alley and, more specifically, what he overheard Detective Cameron say. A thin smile spread across his lips as he prepared himself to try to stimulate a conversation once more. "So, do the dead come back to life in your little town often?"

His question, at least, caused Cameron to look into the rear-view mirror at him, eyes slightly wider than normal, but no other tell-tale signs of surprise written on his face.

"You knew that rotted fellow back there didn't you, detective?" the doctor asked, already aware of the answer. He was not met with a response or a glance this time, but it felt like the Ford had picked up speed.

If any random person who observed Herbert and his odd inclination to stir the pot had asked him why he did so, he would not be able to provide them with an answer. At least not a straightforward one. There were men whose every action made logical sense, and then there were those who just wanted to poke the bear for the hell of it. Herbert, more often that not, fell into the latter category when it came to antagonization. He didn't always know why he did it or even how far was too far (until it was too late), but there was something about him, something in him, that drove him to push others again and again... just as he was about to do with his next sentence. This time, however, he had a plan for his brash actions.

"I heard you back in the alley, detective. Just before you blew that thing's head off, you confessed. You confessed to having already killed it once before."

This time Herbert felt the Fordor stop suddenly, violently. If he had viewed the vehicle from an outsider's perspective, he would have seen the three-foot long skid-marks of rubber the screeching tires left as the vehicle halted its movement. While the doctor had anticipated some sort of response from his remark, especially judging from what he received earlier, his prediction wasn't enough to stop him from flying forward and firmly planting his left shoulder into the back of the driver's seat. He released an audibly groan of discomfort as the area immediately began to throb. It was the same shoulder that had been hit earlier when he was making a mad dash for the police car with Spider and Bert and, while the pain had dissipated to nothing thereafter, it hadn't felt quite right since.

"You done being tough, smart guy, or am I gonna have to come back there and beat some sense into you?"

Even if he was in a whole new world of hurt thanks to his prodding, Herbert knew he couldn't just cower away like he wanted to; he needed to keep hold of the man's attention if he wanted to get himself out of this situation. Before he could start to talk again, however, his shoulder popped when he sat back in his seat, sending a shock through his entire system that inhibited him.

"You know what, Froggy? Since you're so talkative all of the sudden, why don't you start telling me about these?" He reached to his right, not at all caring that he was still stopped in the middle of the block, far removed from any stop lights or signs, and pulled up the collection of notes. "Or..." he threw the papers down into the passenger seat, digging his hand into the medical bag. "How about this nasty little mask you and your friends were so scared of me touching? You know, the green one with the eye right in the middle of the forehead?" He lifted up the mask and held it so Herbert couldn't miss the thing, leering into the backseat as he did so.

Herbert's sights sharpened in annoyance, the simple act before him screaming 'defiance!' in his head. "Don't touch th-" he nearly demanded, but a loud cry from the detective cut him short and signaled that he was too late in his warning.

"Damn it!" Cameron yelled a second after sucking in a stinging breath. His hand jolted at the same time, causing the mask to falter in, but not fall out of, his grip. He plopped the veil back into the bag and brought his hand closer to his face for examination. There was a long cut that ran from the top of his pinky to the bottom of it, blood already starting to soak through the sliver of open skin. Instinctively, the detective rose his pinky to his mouth and momentarily soothed the laceration with a slight suction.

Herbert simply stared at the man in continued disbelief for a moment, trying to instantly wrap his brain around the fact that he was very likely stuck with this bullying, arrogant cop for god knew how long. No, not just him; John and Spider, too. _All_ of them.

The outcome was so horrible to the doctor that it became comical. A true comedy of errors in this living nightmare. He began to laugh after a moment of silence where the detective merely stared at his finger. The chuckle soon turned into a cackle, one that heaved Herbert's chest up and down with every sound, eyes nearly closed in some mad euphoria that made a wide, open-mouth grin spread across his face. For Cameron, the scene was unquestionably eerily. Eerie and genuine on his detainee.

Herbert never found humor in the things most others did, nor did the man have particularly good timing with his outbursts of amusement. People would laugh at a comedy movie or a stand-up comedian's routine, Herbert wouldn't. He didn't find anything to laugh about in those things. People didn't find humor in the misfortune of others, but Herbert often did. A broken, bloodied nose from a fall would garner chuckles at the unfortunate recipient from the doctor, as would any prank that would induce immediate, rampant fear, such as the time Herbert had 'joked' that Dan's re-animated cat, Rufus, was about to attack his associate again after they had just spent over two terrifying minutes trying to kill the thing, and ultimately succeeding.

"We- we warned you," Herbert ridiculed, his words filled with laughter that neither man really understood. "Now you're stuck with us."

Cameron let out a contentious laugh of his own. "'Stuck with you' my ass. Dropping you off at the station and calling it a night. Screw the paperwork, the rookie can handle it." He shifted the car into drive, but Herbert's next words made his foot feel like it was made of lead and he couldn't lift it off the brake.

"You'll be seeing more of the walking dead, detective, that's for sure. My whole night has been filled with them. The university, the funeral home, the warehouse... here. We're as damned as they are."

As images of an obviously-dead, badly decomposed, ax-wielding body of Ivan Wroth flashed in detective Ray Cameron's mind, Herbert's words played over them like the opening dialogue of some bad B-movie. Ray had a history with that corpse, one that he was sure had ended twenty-seven years ago when he killed the serial murderer in cold blood.

Ivan Wroth was a thirty-five-year-old former milkman who had never aspired to be anything more than the profession he'd obtained. Growing up in the time period he had, milkmen were a fairly prevalent, as their jobs were essential in his hometown and looked upon with pride. By the time Ivan was old enough to become what he admired the most, the profession was facing a downhill slide. Not only had more stores popped up across the US, making shopping for such things much more practical, but innovations such as refrigerators had become more and more reliable at keeping things cold, fresh and maintained, diminishing the need, daily and otherwise, for milkmen overall.

When the company he had worked for went under and Ivan was informed that he would be performing his final milk run, something in him snapped. He couldn't handle a changing America, and he couldn't fathom losing the one thing he had aspired to be the most. A voice in his head told him that his customers wouldn't be able to handle it either, so he should take care of them, make his last day _their_ last day. Ivan took a full milk bottle and bludgeoned his boss' head in once he learned of the news. He went on to kill the secretary and three other milkmen who were still getting ready for their day before he left for his route. By the time the police were called about a suspicious milkman wandering the streets in a blood-soaked white uniform, Ivan had already visited three households and butchered the families with the fire ax he acquired from the dairy processing plant. He was arrested without incident and committed to the Crestridge Mental Institute, a state-run residence for the criminally insane, once he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He had only been a patient at the hospital for one year when he broke free one night, killing four orderlies brutally with a large fire ax before his escape.

Ray had heard the all-points bulletins again and again throughout that fateful night, a harrowing reality for the at-the-time rookie who was only two weeks on the job, but what really made his stomach churn was when highway patrol had called the station, stating they saw a car on the side of the road, something seemed skeptical about it and they wanted a couple officers to look into it. What caused Ray to dread the thought was that Pam, his ex, his high-school sweetheart... the love of his life, was quite possibly still out with her new boyfriend, Johnny, and in complete danger. A nagging concern in his head told him that the car was the same '57 Ford Thunderbird that he had seen her and her beau in earlier at the local make-out spot, Atkins Point. When he arrived on the scene, it only took one look at the car parked on the side of Route 66 and Ray knew his fears were correct- it was the same Thunderbird from earlier in the night. There was also something next to it, something that looked very similar to a human appendage. While Mitch Harbor, Ray's partner, took a look in the woods, Ray approached the seemingly abandoned vehicle and picked up the dismembered forearm on the road. The sight of the hand attached to it made his stomach sink and his mind crack; he recognized it instantly. It was a hand he had caressed all throughout high-school, kissed softly on passionate nights, and thought he would hold daily for the rest of his life. It was Pam's hand.

He found more of her on the road, and in the car, and in the woods. She had been chopped up into so many pieces he couldn't even count them all... he didn't _want_ to count them all. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. Sure, Pam had broken up with him when he decided to pursue a career in the law enforcement field after high school instead of going to college, but he had assured himself that he would easily win her back when she realized how serious he was about the line of work, once she saw that he was willing to make it work and rise through the ranks. All of those dreams were suddenly dead. They were just as dead as Pam and as the realization of that truly began to sink in, he screamed. He screamed into the night, yelled and howled in agony over the death of his ex, and as he did so the crack in his mind splintered in all directions, hobbling his morals, convictions and sense of justice horribly.

They never found Ivan Wroth that night, or the next night, or the next. The serial killer hadn't vanished completely though, as ax murders continued in the days following his escape. They all lead to a straight path that would have easily pointed authorities to the deranged murderer, but Ray had another idea in mind and purposefully mislead his brothers in blue at various turns so he could track down Ivan himself. When he did, what followed wasn't routine police work... it was revenge. Every night that he tracked him, Ray carried his twelve-gauge shotgun with him, and the night he found him was no different. The rookie looked the psychopath dead in the eyes as he leveled his firearm off at his chest and blew a hole through Ivan's back with the slug that ripped out of the barrel.

Ray wrapped the body in plastic and buried it in a vacant lot. There would be a lot of families that would not get to feel the justice he had just felt, that would think that Ivan Wroth had simply vanished into thin air and could return again and any time to start killing once more, but Ray didn't care. His retaliation was selfish and would remain a secret and he truly didn't give a good Goddamn. With the deed done and over with, the cracks in his mind seemed to heal over, like a bandage had been placed over them to fix the broken spots. Only, Ray never fully recovered from what happened nor from what he did. No more was he the smiling newcomer to the force that went out of his way to connect with his fellow officers nor the playboy on the force that he could have become if things never panned out with Pam. He shut himself off from life, from people, and while he kept his job and advanced through the ranks, he hated it just as much as he did everything else.

"Cal- California," the detective finally blurted out, pulling himself from memory lane and causing Herbert's incessant laughter to quickly die out. As he spoke, he shifted in his seat, looking forward to the road again as his foot finally slipped off the brake pedal. "We're in Crestridge, California."

A whirlwind of a thought ripped through Herbert's mind at the announcement of his location. _California?! We were just somewhere in Kentucky, according to the license plates, and I went there in a blink of an eye from Massachusetts. I've spanned one end of the country to the other!_

The doctor continued staring at the man, only solemnly this time and with a much more subdued smile. He listened to the man in the driver's seat release a shaky breath and felt the car slowly begin to pick up speed again as the accelerator was engaged. He didn't know what had shifted, and he was quite certain that his captor didn't believe a word he had said and his laughter only helped to further his disbelief, but it was quite clear that _something_ had changed in the man.

In his head, Ray wanted to believe that Herbert was crazy, a madman, one who had clearly flown over the cuckoo's nest... but there was a certain truth about what he had said as well. He didn't know exactly where Herbert's vague list of places were actually located, but if the university he mentioned was Corman University, that would certainly lend itself to his credibility. The only thing that was off was the time. It was undeniable that something was amiss in the town of Crestridge, but the authorities had kept it mostly under wraps. First there was the frozen body that disappeared from the cryogenics lab, showing up on the steps of the Kappa Delta Sigma sorority the same night it vanished. The head was the only visibly damaged area and, at first, Cameron his mistook the injury for that of an ax-wound, stirring old fears that he had never truly managed to put to rest for twenty-seven years. When the second body, a local lab tech from the cryogenics lab who had died from unknown causes the night the frozen corpse vanished, first disappeared from police custody and then somehow showed up near the lab the young man had worked at, Ray began to have worsening suspicions. The lab tech's body had gone through extensive damage due to the autopsy that was being performed on it before it went missing, but the coroner, Jake, swore up and down that he had not touched the head of the body, and certainly hadn't done whatever it took to split the skull in two. Aside from the head injury, there was another disturbing coincidence that the detective had noticed: the destroyed cranial cavities contained hardly any brain matter left in them, and what was left looked like it had been put through a blender. Lastly, of course, there was the recently re-deceased Ivan Wroth, who had absolutely no business up and roaming around or killing the Kappa Delta Sigma's house mother, even if her cottage was built over the spot Ray buried him in. Worse yet was that the detective's gut was telling him that this wasn't over, that there would be more brainless-bodies showing up if they didn't figure out just what the hell was going on and put a stop to it. Remembering what John had addressed his detainee as earlier, the detective took a leap of faith and asked Herbert if he really was a doctor.

Herbert hesitated in his answer, feeling very on edge about such an out-of-place question and trying to figure out how it related to anything they were talking about beforehand.

"Yeah, I thought so," Cameron sighed, "'Doctor' is probably just your lousy street name or something and the lab smock just adds to your little fantasy."

"I _am_ a doctor, alright?!" Herbert replied with audibly irritation. "And a scientist... I just don't have my license to practice yet."

"Okay, Doc," Ray continued, his normal demeanor returning to him as the two continued on. "You ever hear of a case where someone's head can split in two from the inside?"

"What, like their head just exploded?" Herbert asked, mockery lining his question.

"Close. It's really like their head just cracked open. Kinda like when a flower blooms, ya know?" He took a quick look back to see if Herbert was following along with him. "Besides, if the head exploded there'd be blood and brains everywhere. With the two bodies we found, there was hardly any blood or brains left in 'em."

After thinking for a few seconds, Herbert countered, "Even if that were the case and you weren't just dealing with a killer who had a knack for sanitation, it sounds like there would have to be some sort of immense pressure to crack the skull in two instead of just forcing everything out through the nose and eye sockets."

Cameron looked ill for a moment, like he had to hold back a bad case of nausea. "Jesus Christ, Doc..."

"Unless..." Herbert trailed for a moment, taking everything he was told into consideration. "Unless the pressure is being created by some kind of foreign object that not only expands, but also eats away at both soft and hard tissue, like brain matter _and_ bone..."

"Never found anything inside the head, though. Just one empty hole."

"Bot flies," Herbert answered without giving the idea much more thought. "There have been several cases where bot fly larvae has managed to tunnel its way into its host's brain, both animal and human, and eat away at it. Then again, they wouldn't cause a head to split open."

His answer immediately made Ray flash back to blowing Ivan Roth's head to smithereens. Things came out of it. Things that hit the cold, hard concrete below and scurried away, leaving the rotting corpse to collapse to the ground. He needed to head home. He needed to head home immediately to take a better look at a certain set of crime scene photographs from a case that happened twenty-seven years ago. But first...

* * *

As the Fordor pulled to a slow stop in front of the police station some minutes later, Herbert's eyes widened. He had been so lost in thought trying to piece together not only the puzzle the detective had hinted to him but also what was happening in the town of Crestridge, he had completely forgotten he was being escorted to jail.

"You can't be serious about throwing us in jail still?!"

"Dead serious, Froggy," Cameron replied.

Herbert was left with a half-mortified, half-confused look on his face as he tried to ascertain if the detective was joking or not. After all, he reasoned, they were just touching on the subject of death. "But- but we can help you with these cases! Help you figure out what happened to those people, why their heads ruptured from the inside, why the dead are up and walking again We can-"

"No way three civilians are gonna be trotted along on a case, especially ones as sketchy as you guys. Unless, that is, you feel like finally telling me the story behind you and your buddies being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Somewhat deflated, Herbert replied, "You wouldn't believe me if I tried."

Detective Cameron looked at Herbert with an earnest interest from his reflection in the rear-view mirror. "Thrill me."

The doctor opened his mouth to begin talking before his logic got the better of him. _You really expect him to believe a word you say after you explain that you've been time and location hoping for the past few hours?_ he inwardly chided. _He_ might _believe your accounts of the re-animated, but you'd have to lie about everything else. You're a horrible on-the-spot liar... and trying to lie to a trained police officer? Not smart, Herbert._ Knowing he couldn't carry on, the doctor released a hefty sigh and bowed his head.

"Silence might not be an admission of guilt, Froggy, but it sure as hell don't make you look innocent, either," Ray said with a sigh of his own, opening his door and getting out of the car. "Maybe a night in the clink will change your mind."

* * *

Even though detective Cameron had given the hand-off officer specific instructions not to place any of the three men in the same cell, that was exactly what happened to Herbert after he was booked. The officer didn't really have much of a choice, though. The 'drunk tank' cell was full, the cell at the back of the station still had a broken lock and the only cell left was the one John was already in. As Herbert was lead down the long, narrow hall, he took a look at his dingy surroundings. The area was dark, lit only by sparsely placed hanging ceiling lamps that had seen better days. Most of them had low-watt bulbs that barely illuminated anything. The paint on the cement floor was cracked and outright missing in spots, making for somewhat of a dangerous walk in the badly-lit area. As the doctor walked passed the drunk tank, he could see at least eight people crammed into the small space, all of which having to share a single toilet and sink, both showing severe signs of wear, tear and neglect. A brief smile appeared on Herbert's face at the sight of his traveling companion as the insides of the next cell came into view. He was sitting on one of the wall-mounted benches, snug in-between the sink and the toilet.

The cell door slammed shut with enough unexpected force to cause Herbert to jump at the sound and John to release a single laugh at the sight.

"Not used to being behind bars, huh doc?" John watched as Herbert's handcuffs were removed as he held his hands through the rectangular slit in the cell door.

Herbert turned around and began rubbing at his wrists, right where the cuffs were tightened a little too much. "And you are, I imagine?"

John shrugged, a smirk lining his lips. "I wasn't always the fine specimen of morality you see sitting in front of you today. Hell, I was on the real bad side of the law once upon a time. Me an' a whole gang of other idiots."

"Mm-hmm," Herbert hummed in slight disregard, more concerned over what was missing than what John was saying. "And Spider- where is he?"

Before John could answer, slurred shouts came from the drunk tank across the hall.

"Hey! Did you just say there was a spider in your cell?"

"There's spiders in here?! You can't lock us up I these conditions- it's against the Geneva Conventions!"

"Someone said 'sliders and beer', right?"

The commotion continued for over a minute, the voices from the intoxicated inhabitants from the other cell growing louder and louder, until an officer poked his head around the corner and yelled for everyone to quiet down.

After things had calmed, Herbert walked to where John was sitting and motioned for him to scoot over, plopping down beside him when he did so.

"What the hell is a "sliders'?" the gunslinger immediately asked, keeping his voice somewhat quiet to avoid eavesdroppers again.

"A 'slider'," Herbert corrected with a slight smile, "is apparently a food option of choice for young, drunk college students here. It's a small hamburger."

John seemed to muse on the the answer for a moment before changing the subject entirely. "Not sure where the kid is," he finally replied, going back to the doctor's question that brought about the disturbance across from them. "We were right behind 'em, and they made it here first- and mind you we only made it here about fifteen minutes before you showed up, I reckon. Anyway, He must have some kind of way about him, because that lady officer was nothing but smiles and he was yappin' on and on to her as she led him into the building."

"He probably made us all sound crazy," Herbert lamented, assuming Spider had broke and told the officer about the morgue and the white light.

John began to chuckle through his reply. "No, I don't think so. Not with the way that lady was smiling."

Herbert looked at his crony for a moment, almost angry that the cowpuncher could _assume_ to know something he did not. "Well he's not here, so he either said something worthy of interrogation or they are holding him in another room."

A long beat of silence followed the short-lived discussion of their missing partner. Neither man knew what to say next... but Herbert knew what he _should_ say, even if he didn't particularly care to.

"Tell me about this troublesome gang of yours," the doctor finally released, not at all caring that his tone was of a 'ho-hum' manner. He figured that if he was going to be stuck with John until they figured this whole mess out, depend on him more than he had anyone in his life before, that he could at least humor the man by pretending to have an interest in his life and what he had to say. Deep down, there was a legitimate curiosity Herbert held towards John and the history the man must have had, it was just that that intrigue was overridden by the good doctor's survival instincts.

"And here I thought you were too concerned with your research papers to hear any more of my crazy, 'made-up' stories." John made sure to apply a healthy air-quote to the key part of his sentence for emphasis.

Herbert released a laugh. A real, honest-to-god laugh. In truth, he was worried about his notes. His heart nearly burst from his chest several times from stints of uncontrollable inner-anxiety, but he also knew that worrying was all he could do at the moment... and that wasn't going to help anyone. "Well," he began, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose before leaning forward, resting his arms on his legs and clasping his hands together, "as a man in a mortuary once told me, 'Can't get to 'em right now, so I best just worry about the here and now.'"

A look of shock overcame John's face as he heard the doctor try his best to imitate not only his words, but his voice as well. There was a low, guttural roughness to the tone, alongside a painfully fake drawl. If it wasn't for the fact that the gunslinger knew West, he might have felt insulted, but the fact that it _was_ West made it amusing to the man. His astonishment soon turned to delight as he found himself cracking up at the absurd imitation. "You are full of surprises, West," John proclaimed, a laugh still wrapping his words. "Full of them." After taking a moment to collect himself, John pondered on where the best place to start would be with the recounting of Dutch's gang, and he settled on the point that most would: the beginning.


End file.
